


I Will Survive (College)

by carterhack, EmeraldTulip, Frog_that_writes, XerxesBreak



Category: Andi Mack (TV)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Asexual Character, Bisexual Character, Canon Gay Character, Cyrus has a youtube channel, Everyone is LGBT, F/F, Fluff and Humor, Future Fic, Gay Character, Hurt/Comfort, Lesbian Character, M/M, Multi, Nonbinary Character, Other, Pansexual Character, The college au this fandom needs, discontinued, transgender character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-06-13 08:55:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 35,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15360843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carterhack/pseuds/carterhack, https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmeraldTulip/pseuds/EmeraldTulip, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frog_that_writes/pseuds/Frog_that_writes, https://archiveofourown.org/users/XerxesBreak/pseuds/XerxesBreak
Summary: So much had changed for the GHC since middle school. Cyrus had officially come out, an event that caused a chain reaction among their group. First it was Jonah, with the clear realization that he was bi and was very much into Cyrus. Then, it was Buffy turning down a rather large amount of guys in high school before snapping and coming out as ace. Finally, Andi realized they/them pronouns suited them much better, and that they should probably put everyone out of their misery and start dating Walker.They had gained members, too. Walker joined with his obvious crush on Andi soon after the bar mitzvah. Amber came at the end of her mean girl phase and with Iris, her new girlfriend, in tow. Marty and Gus joined last, with painfully obvious crushes on each other that surprised everyone except, for some reason, Jonah.Their little—or not so little, anymore—friend group was sort of a mess, but they all worked together quite nicely. They somehow managed to survive high school, but they were now facing an even bigger task: surviving college.





	1. 18

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everybody! This fic is the product of a Walker appreciation groupchat gone wild. We’re all very proud of our work, though, and we hope you all enjoy it!  
> Updates will happen either once or twice a week, depending: only on Friday if the chapter does not have a long “video” attached, and the following Tuesday in addition if it does.  
> Without further ado, enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andi seems to be feeling a bit down on their birthday this year, so the gang decides to throw a party to make them feel better.

“Andi, wake up.”

“No.”

“Andi…” Buffy poked Andi’s face. “Andi, it’s your birthday, so I’m gonna be nice and not jump on you. Now get up, our classes start in twenty minutes.”

“But sleep.”

“But education and voter registration,” Buffy shot back, grabbing a sheet of paper from their bedside table. Dropping it on Andi’s face, she explained: “Some guy dressed as Captain America was giving out voter registration forms on campus last week, and I figured there’s no better way to celebrate eighteen whole years on Earth!”

“I hate you,” Andi said through the paper.

“Come on. Up you get.”

* * *

Two weeks into the first semester at Weber State University, everyone seemed to have already fallen into schedule. Andi, Cyrus, Buffy, Walker, and Gus, the new freshmen, realized that college really isn’t as scary as they make it out to be. Those who had already been there a year or two, namely Amber, Iris, Marty, and Jonah, had gotten back into the swing of classes. However, despite the fact that so far everything had been (relatively) calm for the group, something happened to disrupt the peace: Andi’s birthday. They had wanted to do something special for the soon-to-be eighteen-year-old, especially seeing as how Andi wasn’t doing so well, meaning they had to celebrate their birthday right. The fact that the crew were all broke college students meant that, honestly, there wasn’t much in the form of celebrations that they could actually do. They couldn’t exactly pull a real party in their dorm rooms, and, as they’d discussed the day before, even the thought of going out to eat was laughable.

“Laughable,” Marty reiterated, starting to lean against a bookshelf before thinking better of it. “Unthinkable. Besides, can you imagine any restaurant that would take a reservation for nine last-minute?”

“No,” Jonah sighed. “Cy, any ideas?”

“Quiet!” the librarian hissed before Cyrus could reply. That of course meant the conversation was over. No one wanted to go against Mrs. Shepter.

In the end, they settled for throwing a surprise get together in the room Amber and Iris shared. Their place had been the obvious answer. Or, well, it was for most of them.

“Why does it have to be in our room?” Iris complained as they all quietly discussed plans over lunch the day of the party. “I mean, really?”

“Well, we can’t keep Andi out of their own room,” Walker reasoned.

“And our room is just… a disaster,” Gus admitted. “We won’t be able to clean it in time. Out of everyone, your room is the neatest.” Marty, Gus, and Walker could barely sleep in their room let alone invite people over for all the mess in it, while Jonah’s and Cyrus’s had to be kept clean for Cyrus’s videos, apparently. Also, the amount of rainbows everywhere in their room was headache-inducing, according Marty.

“We’re all gay, Marty. All of us.”

* * *

“Iris, Marty, and Gus, come with me,” Cyrus instructed once everyone, except for Andi, Buffy, and Jonah, convened in the campus’s library after their final class. The plan was set, all they needed were supplies. “We’re decorating Amber and Iris’s room so we’ll have to stop at the dollar store. Amber, Walker, you deal with the cake.”

Before anyone could object to _that_ inevitable disaster, he ushered everyone out.

“Where are Buffy and Jonah?” Iris asked as they all rushed down the hall.

“Distracting Andi.”

* * *

Walker and Amber were no chefs. In fact, neither of them really knew how to cook. Iris had usually been the one to cook for Amber, and Marty for Walker. Or they lived on cheap takeout. Amber, especially, was a disaster in the kitchen. This left obvious trouble for the cake plan.

“Do you even know what you’re doing?” Amber asked Walker, looking at him worriedly.

“I’m looking for all of the ingredients,” Walker mumbled, distracted. It was a struggle. The only dorm of the group that had an actual semi-working kitchen was Walker’s room, and between the three boys that lived there, it was an absolute disaster.

Somehow, Walker still managed to find actual ingredients, as he started piling things such as eggs, sugar, and flour on the counter—after pushing a pile of dishes to the side. Amber wondered how Marty was even able to cook in there.

Soon after the ingredients were out, Walker pulled out his phone to look for a recipe to make a chocolate cake. Something easy and simple that they couldn’t mess up.

“Is…. that Pinterest?” Amber asked with hesitation. Walker chose not to comment as he grabbed a bowl.

“We should add something special to it, it is Andi’s birthday,” Amber started up again. “A plain chocolate cake is boring.”

“You’re right.” He started shifting through the fridge. “We can add strawberries?” he suggested and she agreed immediately.

“Here, let me—”

“Amber,” Walker cut her off. “No offense, but the last time you tried cooking Iris got salmonella. No.” Amber huffed as Walker started putting the ingredients in a bowl.

“Why am I here if I can’t do anything?” she complained, and Walker gave her a look.

“Fine… put the rest of the dry ingredients together while I put the wet ingredients together.”

Amber nodded and continued adding the dry ingredients, adding in the sugar last before mixing it all together. Walker finished mixing the wet ingredients and dicing the strawberries into weirdly awkward lumps.

“There’s eggshell in there,” Amber frowned and Walker’s face fell as he looked down.

“No there isn’t—fuck.” He sighed and got a spoon, scooping out the eggshell. After, he started pouring in the wet ingredients, only getting minimal amounts of batter on himself, then added the strawberries. Amber pulled the bowl from Walker’s grasp, mixing it with a spoon.

“I think you’re supposed to use a whisk,” Walker said.

“Do you see a whisk anywhere?” she raised her eyebrows.

“I… yeah, okay,” he sighed again, watching as she got batter all over the counter. Then, he poured the batter into a pan, sliding it into the mini oven and setting a timer.

“And now we wait,” he said, and Amber groaned.

“I hate waiting,” she complained, leaning against the counter and pulling out her phone.

“When you constantly have to wait for paint to dry, waiting for a cake to bake is easy.” Walker chuckled and walked over to his bed, stepping over a pile of clothes, to pick up his sketchbook. Amber just sat on Gus’s bed, her eyes glued to her phone, as Walker continued on the drawing he’d been working on.

* * *

The alarm rang in their ears and they both looked up from what they were doing, staring at the oven. Amber was the first to get up. Walker had to climb over mess to get to the counter. Amber switched the oven off, opening it up.

“Aren’t you supposed to check if it’s cooked first?” Walker asked and Amber shrugged him off.

“It’s cooked,” she replied before reaching towards the cake to take it out. Walker opened his mouth to warn her, but it was too late.

“FUCK!” she yelled, clutching her hands to her chest. Walker opened up the fridge, pulling out an icepack and handing it to her, giving her a concerned look.

“You’re uh.. supposed to use these,” he mumbled as he pulled on oven mitts. She was in too much pain to snap at him, so they both just stayed silent as he pulled the cake from the oven, setting it on the counter. They waited for a few minutes for it to cool before Walker slide it out of the pan, putting it on the biggest, and nicest, plate they had.

“I want to taste it before we frost it,” Amber said quickly and Walker shrugged, cutting off a little bit from the side and splitting it in half.

“Alright,” he muttered and handed her the piece before the both shoved it in their mouths.

“What the…” he spit the piece in the sink, gagging.

“Hell.” Amber’s face scrunched up and she, too, spit it out. “That’s awful, Walker, I think you found a shitty recipe,” she said and he frowned as he stared at her. “What?”

“Did you use sugar, Amber?” he asked and she frowned as well.

“Yeah,” she said as she motioned to the container on the counter. “I even put a little more than the recipe called for because I didn’t think it was enough—”

“Amber,” Walker said calmly. “That’s salt.”

“Oh,” is all she said, and he pulled out his phone. “What are you doing?” she asked him.

“Finding the nearest bakery.”

* * *

“Dude, you okay?” Jonah asked, nudging Andi with a pillow. The little camera his boyfriend had given him dangled loosely in his hand—Cyrus had charged him with vlogging Andi while everyone else was shopping and vlogging at the dollar store.

Andi blinked at him, a little startled out of their own thoughts. “Hmm? Yeah.”

“Come on, we know you better than that,” Buffy countered hanging off the side of her bed. “It’s your birthday, class is done for the day! What’s got you down?”

“Nothing,” they insisted. “I’m fine.”

“Andi—”

Andi stood abruptly. “I’m gonna go visit Amber, alright?”

“No!” Buffy almost fell off her bed.

Andi wasn’t stupid. At this point, it was obvious what Jonah and Buffy were doing. Today was their birthday, they were obviously not a bundle of sunshine at the moment, they had friends who were exactly the kind of people to throw a sad person a surprise party, and Buffy and Jonah were doing a horrible job distracting them. And, yes, they love their friends and they’re grateful that they’re trying to make them happy by celebrating their birthday, but they really weren’t feeling it this year. It was complicated. But on the other hand…  Andi Mack had never been one to shut down a party.

“Alright,” they said, playing along. “Want to watch something?”

* * *

It was a long few hours after their last class, being “kept” in their room by Jonah and Buffy, watching before Amber finally showed up to drag them off to her own room where a party inevitably lay. Andi had already decided to pretend that the secret had been kept. When the door swung open and everyone yelled, “happy birthday!” Andi tried really hard to smile normally and act surprised. Granted, the decorations were a little surprising: they were _good_ . There were colorful streamers on the walls and an almost large banner that said _Happy Birthday, Andi!_

“You know,” Cyrus said, noticing their rather over enthusiastic response from behind his camera, “ _that_ is why you’re in art and not theatre.” And, of course, that successfully got a laugh out of them as they were handed a blue cone hat reading “Birthday boy!” in white block letters.

“Wow you guys really put in the works for this party. Paper streamers _and_ a birthday hat? We’re on a budget, here! What did I do to deserve such great friends?” Andi asked making a show of putting the hat on.

“I know, we’re amazing.” Buffy replied.

“You know you guys didn't have to throw me a party. I would’ve been fine with a normal D&D night.”

“You’re damn right we didn’t have to,” Gus said from his spot near the wall where his phone was plugged into Iris’ mini speaker. “You better appreciate it.” Ah, Gus. Could always count on him to keep it real. Seemed he was DJ-ing for this party. Interesting choice.

* * *

“Gus. Babe. Please. I love you but this music is so bad.”

It was twenty minutes into the party before Marty snapped. Of course, he and Buffy had been silently arguing the whole time over who should be allowed to have reign over the music, but it took until then for them to actually say something.

“Interesting that you should say that, considering I got all of these songs from everyone’s Spotify playlists. Including yours.”

“Wh—I’d never have any of this trash on my playlist. This is probably all Iris’ music.”

“Come on, now. Andi, Walker and I are the only people who actually listen to good music. Amber only listens to screamo, I’d bet money on Cyrus listening to nothing but boy bands and classical music—”

“One Direction was a gift to this earth!”

“—and Jonah just listens to acoustic guitar songs and rock bands that he can do bad covers of. It’s either Buffy or Marty,” Iris argued which gave the fight enough fuel to go on for a good five minutes.

“Are you videoing this?” Jonah muttered, sidling up to Cyrus. “Because if you’re not, you have to start right now.”

Cyrus grinned at him, waving his camera a little. “I’m offended you doubted me for a second.” He made a face at the camera, Jonah following suit. “This is _really_ bad, though.”

As if on cue, _Baby_ by Justin Bieber started playing and Buffy literally screamed.

“Who? Why? Who would do this? Gus!”

Gus shrugged. “Don’t blame the messenger. It’s right here on the mega Spotify playlist. I can check who it comes from, if you want.”

“Ten bucks says it’s Iris,” Marty said immediately.

“What?” Iris spluttered. “Ten bucks says it’s Marty!”

“I’m putting ten on Marty,” Buffy agreed. “Anyone else want to bet?”

Nobody else took the bet except for Jonah. “I’ll bet on Cyrus,” he said, and Cyrus gaped at him.

“You have no faith in me, you traitor!” he exclaimed.

“Gus, who put the song on the playlist?” Andi asked.

“Cyrus.”

Jonah laughed. “I knew it! Pay up!”

Marty, Iris, and Buffy all grumbled as they gave Jonah his money.

“Justin Bieber, Cyrus?” Iris asked as she reluctantly pulled a ten from her pocket. “Really?”

“Is anyone feeling cake? I’d like some cake,” Cyrus deflected.

* * *

Andi blew out the pretend candles on the cake at Cyrus’ insistence. They all dug into the cake, happy to have food that wasn't roman noodles or sandwiches made with picked over lunch meat. Once everyone was done eating, Cyrus set his camera down, still letting it record just in case, and everyone focused completely on Andi.

“Oooookay present time! Here you go Andi,” Cyrus said, shoving a badly wrapped package at Andi.

“A new sketchbook! Thanks, Cy!”

By the time Andi was done opening gifts, they had gotten two new sketchbooks from Cyrus and Marty, a new 20-sided die from Gus, a package of floss (the thread kind, not the dental kind) from Buffy, a gray and black striped beanie from Jonah, a blank tote bag for them to put patches on from Amber, colored pencils from Iris, and a kiss and a portrait of themself from Walker (to a chorus of a mix of “awws” and fake retching noises from their friends).

“You guys are honestly so gross,” Buffy teased and Andi rolled their eyes.

“Not true. You know that Jonah and Cyrus are the grossest couple,” Andi joked back and Cyrus rolled his eyes, chuckling as he picked up the camera again, turning it on.

“That’s because they’ve been basically dating since middle school,” Buffy added and Amber looked up.

“It took them a damn good time to actually get together, though,” she said which left everyone in quiet giggles.

“Slander!” Jonah insisted.

“Come on, guys,” Cyrus fake pouted. “I’m gonna have to do _so_ much editing.” He tactfully ignored Gus’ grumbled comment that _he_ was the one who was going to have to edit this. “Do something interesting, for my fans.”

“All ten of them,” Andi deadpanned.

“One of them is your mom, so don’t even go there.”

Unfortunately, nothing was done for the fans.

* * *

As the party went on, the music got louder and the friends got more into the party. Gus was playing songs mostly from Marty’s playlist at this point, mostly wanting upbeat music. They were in the middle of “Never Gonna Give You Up” when Iris got a call.

“Shhh, it’s campus security,” she mumbled, waiting for the music to be turned down before answering it.

“Hello,” Iris said in a chipper voice, her face falling as the call went on. “Yes. I understand. Alright. Have a good night!” she replied before hanging up.

“What’d they want?” Amber asked. Everyone stared at Iris and she sighed.

“We got a noise complaint. We gotta wrap it up.”

“Who? Why? No!” Marty groaned.

“TJ,” Buffy decided and Marty gave a stern look to no one in particular.

“Fuck,” he said eloquently.

“Guess we’re gonna have to clean this shit up, now,” Walker said, picking up an empty paper cup and throwing it out.

“Fuck,” Amber groaned, getting up from the spot on her bed where she was sitting.

“Peace out,” Jonah said immediately, making his way towards the front door.

“Jonah, you made half of this mess.” Amber looked at him, a hand on her hip.

“Yeah but it’s your room, sooo—”

“I can’t believe I ever dated you,” she teased which caused Andi to laugh. “I can’t believe Jonah’s dated two one-hundred percent gay people.”

“I can’t believe three people in this room have dated Jonah at all,” Andi said.

“I can’t believe half the people in this room have liked Jonah at one point.” Gus said and everyone turned to him. “Hey, don’t look at me, I included myself in that.”

* * *

Andi felt kind of bad that their friends had thrown them a party just because they could tell that they were feeling down. It wasn’t even like they had a good reason to feel so upset, they mused while throwing away yet another solo cup that was sticky from Sprite. It was a combination of little things, really. The homesickness was a major part, but all of them were feeling a little bit of a longing for the Spoon at this point. It was more so the fact that it was their birthday all together. Not only was it the first birthday they were spending away from Bex after finding out she was their mom, it was their eighteenth birthday. Meaning they were officially no longer a kid and were, in fact, an adult. They knew it was stupid to think that anything was going to change that much just because they could legally vote now, but it felt like they were letting go of a big part of themself today. They had only gotten Bex as their mom five years ago and it was crazy to think their childhood with her was over so fast. They didn’t want to grow up.

They were trying to keep up their spirits during the party, have fun and forget about why they were so upset in the first place, and it had been working for a while. But, now that the party was ending, Gus had shut off the music and everyone was fairly quiet for the sake of cleaning up the mess as soon as possible, it was a lot harder to ignore the fact. They were still trying to seem upbeat, obviously their friends had thrown them a cool party and, yeah, it was in a cramped dorm room and the cake was from a Kroger's, but they had obviously put effort into it. They were such good friends.

“So, Andi.”

Of course, it would be the fact that their friends were so amazing that undid it all. They could obviously see Andi was upset and it was only a matter of time before one of them would bring it up. “What had you so upset today anyway? I mean, you're turning eighteen! That's kinda a big deal,” Buffy pointed out after they had finished picking up and were all scattered around the room, not yet willing to go back to their own dorms because then it would set in that they had just completely ignored the homework they definitely should have been working on today.

“That's the thing. It _is_ a big deal,” Andi said. “I mean, it's like my childhood just officially ended.”

Buffy frowned. “Of course, you’re an adult now,” she put a hand on their shoulder. “But your childhood isn't over.”

“Yeah!” Walker interjected. “Amber’s twenty and just today she accidentally put salt in the original cake instead of sugar. We’re all still kids at heart.”

“You did— _what?_ ” Marty gaped, and Amber waved her hand.

“Off topic.”

Buffy glared at them for a second before turning back to Andi. “What we were _trying_ to say is that it's not over. We're all still only in college. We're still going to make dumb mistakes and we're still learning from them. Just because you're legally an adult now doesn't mean you can't still have fun and call your parents when you get a boo-boo. It just means that you'll get a lot more time in prison if you break the law.”

“Wow, Buffy. That was almost so touching. I'll keep your wise words at heart next time I feel the need to rob a bank,” Cyrus said.

“You’re welcome. Now we should probably all go to bed. It's kinda midnight.”

That was met with a chorus of groans and whines about wanting to stay up later.   _Kids at heart indeed,_ Andi thought with a smile.

* * *

It was later, when Buffy was already snoring softly in the bed next to Andi’s when they recalled the words she had said. About how they could still call their parents when they got a boo-boo. Bex had of course reassured Andi a million times that they could call any time, but they were still hesitant to do so so late at night. Or early in the morning, Andi realized seeing the time on their phone read 1:07 am. Still though, they knew they weren’t going to go be able to sleep while thinking about this. Knowing Bex, she was still up watching Law & Order anyways. Sure enough, she answered on the second ring.

“Hey, Mom—”

“Andi? What is it, are you okay? Did someone get hurt? Do I need to bail someone out of jail? Because I will but it might—”

“Mom! Calm down, everything is okay. Do you have that little faith in me?”

“Oh. Sorry. What’s going on?”

“I just wanted to talk to you.”

“Okay, just give me a second to pause this…” Andi heard the telltale sounds of a remote being fumbled with. “Sorry. I was watching Law & Order. What’s going on?”

“Well, it's just that… I'm eighteen now. And I know nothing is really going to change all that much but still part of me wishes I didn't have to grow up. Because you were only part of my life as my mom for five years and it went so _fast_ and it feels like I'm already losing that relationship.”

“Andi,” Bex said and Andi could hear the fondness in her voice through the phone. “Just because you're an adult now doesn't mean you're not my kid anymore. I love you, and I'm always going to be here for you. Even if you're a two hour drive away, I'm still going to do everything I can to help you. And yes, I know, you’ve only had me as a mom for a few years now, but I promise that it's not going away, no matter how old you get.”

Andi sighed slowly. “Thanks, Mom. I feel a lot better now.” They smiled, even if Bex couldn’t see. “Love you.”

“Love you too, Andi.” The call ended.

“Aww, that was so sweet,” a muffled voice came from right outside the door.

“What the— _Jonah_?”

“Everyone’s here,” he defended himself immediately, followed by a chorus of groans at being given up.

“Yeah, yeah, so cute. Now can everyone please shut up so I can go to sleep? Reel in your disaster of a boyfriend, Cyrus,” Buffy said from her bed, voice still tired from sleep and filled with annoyance.”

“Sorry, Buffy.”

“It’s fine. It’s fine, just—everyone go to bed,” she complained, covering her eyes with a pillow. Andi chuckled, hearing a chorus of “goodnight”s and “happy birthday”s from the door, before they put their phone down, pulling the covers up over them with a smile. It was a good birthday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [the spotify playlist actually exists!](https://open.spotify.com/user/wgg1p2hv770g1w6cgwtr0b0s7/playlist/1mUpffqmUStxniwpEG3RRV)  
>  If you have any song suggestions to add, or want to send us messages, send them into our tumblrs!  
> [@an-anxious-gay-mess](https://an-anxious-gay-mess.tumblr.com)  
> [@cyrushack](https://cyrushack.tumblr.com)  
> [@he-lives-on-mirkwood](https://he-lives-on-mirkwood.tumblr.com)  
> [@jonahbeckfan4life](https://jonahbeckfan4life.tumblr.com)  
> Also! To reiterate, we will be updating this story (hopefully!) every single Friday, with mini bonus chapters on the occasional Tuesday.


	2. Vlog #8: Andi's Birthday! (Video)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Read More:_  
>  The whole crew tests to see if we can all survive planning a surprise party. (The answer is basically no.)  
> Note: I know people are used to my clean videos, but when my friends are involved, there is simply too much to beep out. Also I don't know how (yet). Sorry in advance.  
> ~Cyrus

“Beep boop, hello humans, my name is Cy-Gay!" Cyrus began the vlog, giving the camera a wave. He was sitting on his bed, the rainbow flag on the wall his background. “Say hi to my viewers, Jonah!”

“Hi, Bex,” Jonah’s voice came from offscreen.

Cyrus made a face. “He’s mean to me sometimes,” he said, laughing. “Jonah, come here. Tell everyone what we’re doing today.”

There was a noise like a bowl being put down and then Jonah came into view, sitting on the bed next to Cyrus. “I’m ignoring my Cheerios for you all,” he mutters. “Okay, so. It’s our best friend Andi’s birthday today. Yaaaaay.” He made little firework motions with his hand, looking at Cyrus. “You can edit graphics in, right?”

“Hmm, yeah, I’ll have Gus do it.”

 _[Gus didn’t do it]_ appears on screen.

“Cool. Anyway! It’s Andi’s birthday today, and even though we have class in about half an hour, we’ll be planning and setting up all day. What’s the plan, Cy-Guy?”

“So I’ve been talking to Walker and Marty, and what’s going to happen is that we’ll split up into teams—one to decorate, one to make the cake, one to keep Andi busy. We’ll figure out who’s doing what later.”

“Sounds good, Cy. Can I finish my cereal now? I have to be at the recording booth for Music Production in twenty minutes.”

“Ugh, you’re no fun,” Cyrus said, frowning. “Fine.”

“We’ll keep you guys updated!” Jonah shouted as he made a beeline back to his breakfast.

* * *

“Hey, guys!” Cyrus greets the camera, sitting with Jonah, Buffy, and Amber at a table. “Lunch break. What’s everyone eating?” He zoomed in dramatically at everyone’s food, which happened to be different variations of turkey sandwich. “Anyway, we’ve decided that Andi’s little shebang is gonna happen at Amber’s place, because it’s the nicest looking and we can’t afford a restaurant. We still have to get all the supplies, but at least we know where we’re going!”

“Yay,” Buffy deadpanned.

“Hey, wait, everyone do this,” Jonah said, making more firework gestures. “We gotta make Gus work a little.”

 _[i hate these losers]_ appears on the screen for a minute accompanied by an extreme close up of Gus shaking his head looking annoyed.

“We’ll be back!” Cyrus grinned.

* * *

“Okay, so we’re at the dollar store,” Cyrus said to the camera, surrounded by shelves. “And when I say ‘we,’ I mean apparently just me because I lost Iris, Marty, and Gus. Where did they go?”

 

 _[twenty minutes later]_ appears on the screen, and there’s a jumpcut that leads right to Cyrus jogging around the dollar store, camera held out in front of his face to capture his expression of fear.

“I, uh, still can’t find anyone. I’m so lost. I ended up in a section filled with sticker books about the Bible.” He held up one of said books. “They have Jesus stickers! But that’s not the point.” He frowned thoughtfully. “I wonder how Buffy and Jonah are doing with Andi. It can’t be any worse.”

* * *

“So we’re watching Phineas and Ferb reruns on this tiny TV because that’s all Buffy and Andi could agree on,” Jonah whispered to the camera. “We’re, uh… not really doing anything, but Cyrus told me to vlog, so.”

Buffy tapped him on the shoulder and he pointed the camera at her. She held up a piece of paper that simply said, _we successfully stopped Andi from leaving._

“Oh, true!” Jonah agreed quietly.

“What are you guys whispering about?” Andi asked from the floor, eyes fixed on the screen.

“Nothing,” Buffy and Jonah said in unison.

“Later, guys,” Jonah muttered before turning the camera off.

* * *

Cyrus’s face appeared back on screen.

“Okay, so I found Marty and Gus, they were making out,” he giggled, panning the camera to the two boys.

“Fuck you guys,” Iris said, appearing suddenly down the aisle, arms filled with brightly colored paper. “What the hell have you been doing the last forty-five minutes?”

“I got lost, but I did get a party hat,” Cyrus said immediately from behind the camera, waving the “Birthday boy!” cone. “And it looks like Gus and Marty were getting dick instead of snacks in the snack aisle...”

“Shut the fuck up, Cyrus,” Marty said, putting his middle finger up to the camera, at the same time Gus said, “I _am_ a snack.”

“Hey, this is a family-friendly channel!” Cyrus cried as Marty stalked towards him.

“Cyrus,” Iris rolled her eyes. “What you said was worse.”

“Oh, right.” He frowned. “Gus, can you bleep this?”

“I could, but I won’t.”

“Shit,” Cyrus frowned. “I mean shoot. I’ll figure it out.”

 _[i didn’t figure it out :( ]_ appears on the screen.

* * *

“Okay so it looks like we're ready to start decorating. Buffy texted me and said Andi is still being distracted and I guess Walker and Amber are still getting a cake so it's up to us. Marty and I are in charge of getting the streamers on the ceiling ‘cause these nerds are all too short.”

“Cyrus I swear to god—”

“Iris, you're gonna make the banner while Gus works on his playlist. Say hi, Gus!”

“Hi Gus.”

“You guys suck at this,” Cyrus said with a pout before setting down the camera. “Okay well, I'll probably get Gus to help me speed this up later so you don't have to sit through twenty minutes of intense decorating. See you when we're done!”

 

There was a quick time lapse of the two moving around the room, hanging up streamers with Gus standing in the corner and Iris growing more and more frustrated with the banner. It abruptly stopped with Cyrus bending down to get his face in the lense.

“Okay so Iris managed to somehow tear the banner in half, but it's okay because Walker came to save us!” There was a dramatic zoom of Walker standing over a piece of paper and quickly trying to sketch letters onto it before panning back over the Cyrus.

“We’re a little pressed for time now, can’t keep Andi entertained forever, so Walker is kinda in the zone over there. They got the cake as you can see on table over there.” Another zoom, this time on the cake.

“We’re gonna wait ‘till Walker is done, then Amber is going to go get Andi, who Buffy and Jonah are hopefully keeping entertained. See you in a bit!”

* * *

There was an abrupt jump cut to Jonah silently laughing at Buffy and Andi screaming along to the lyrics of a musical number in Phineas in Ferb. The two were jumping around the room until Andi banged their leg against their bed frame.

“FU-”

* * *

Another jumput to a pitch black room.

“Okay so guys,” Cyrus said, his voice was barely above a whisper in the dark room. “Andi should be here any minute now and we're all gonna jump out and surprise them. I think I hear them!” The lights suddenly flicked on the show everyone in the room jumping out shouting, “Happy Birthday!”

“Aw, wow, guys! A party! I totally didn't expect this. What a surprise!” the camera focused on Andi’s exaggeratedly surprised face.

Cyrus laughed behind the camera. “You know, _that's_ why you're in art and not theater.”

* * *

Iris and Marty were arguing about the music after the next cut, Cyrus and Jonah both making faces at the camera as the playlist cycled through bad music.

“This is _really_ bad, though.” As if on cue, _Baby_ by Justin Bieber started playing and Buffy literally screamed, Cyrus immediately zooming in on her face.

“Who? Why? Who would do this? Gus!”

* * *

“Ha, I just won thirty dollars because I knew Cyrus put Justin Bieber on the playlist,” Jonah gloated to the camera.

“I hate you,” Buffy said.

* * *

“Alright guys, that's about it for this video! Hope you enjoyed. If you want to see what presents Andi got, go follow them on… Instagram, right, Andi? Yeah, links are below and on the endscreen. Say bye to the audience everyone!” Cyrus said, flipping the camera around to everyone at the table eating the cake.

“Bye, Mom.”

“Bye, Bex.”

“Bye, Ms. Mack!”

“Guys, other people watch my channel!” Cyrus said with annoyance, focusing the camera back on himself.

“No they don’t,” Buffy said from off screen.

“Anyway. See you guys next time!”

 

_[endscreen of Jonah playing an acoustic guitar cover of Old MacDonald with a few social media links pasted over it]_

 

The outtakes roll:

“There’s a hundred and four days of summer vacation and school comes alone just to end iiiiiit!” Andi and Buffy sing along to the Phineas and Ferb intro, not knowing they’re being filmed, as Jonah laughs behind the camera.

 

Cyrus is on the floor of the dollar store, camera pointed up at Iris, glaring at him.

“Being abandoned took all the energy out of me,” he whines while Iris just shakes her head.

* * *

Comments:

 

_MerlinRules2001:_

_Happy Birthday Andi! Also omg #Garty is so cute!!!_

 

_love simon:_

_As a fellow jewish gay guy, seeing you live your best life gives me a lot of optimism! Thanks for making your videos, dude._

 

_jb (not justin bieber):_

_As much as I hate to admit it, this was a lot of fun to make. Happy birthday Andi!_

_Cy-Gay:_

 **** _You did a good job filming, Jonah, I should put you to work more often :)_

_RainbowGirl:_

_omg tell me is #jyrus real??_

 

_27Catz:_

_Garty 4 life_

 

_BexMack:_

_Happy birthday, Andi! Good job on that timelapse Cyrus, you're really improving!_

__Cy_ -Gay: _

_Oh please, Bex, you know Gus did that._

 

_Ithinkimsane:_

_Oh god I’m an art major in college and watching iris with that banner HURT_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Questions, comments, suggestions go to our tumblrs!  
> [@an-anxious-gay-mess](https://an-anxious-gay-mess.tumblr.com)  
> [@cyrushack](https://cyrushack.tumblr.com)  
> [@he-lives-on-mirkwood](https://he-lives-on-mirkwood.tumblr.com)  
> [@jonahbeckfan4life](https://jonahbeckfan4life.tumblr.com)
> 
> Spotify playlist is [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/wgg1p2hv770g1w6cgwtr0b0s7/playlist/1mUpffqmUStxniwpEG3RRV)!


	3. Despacito

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When one couple wants to go on a date, another couple wants to join them, three people have to handle a gig, one person is MIA, and one person has to work, it’s unexpected for everyone to cross paths again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This. Uh. Was written before the meme died. We’re so sorry.

“So I was thinking,” Amber started, laying across her bed and giving Iris a mischievous smile.

“Oh, that’s dangerous,” Iris interrupted, not looking up from her laptop.

“Shh, be quiet,” Amber instructed, sitting up to glare at her girlfriend before flopping back down with a huph. “I was thinking that we haven’t done anything in _forever_. We should go do something. Like go get food.”

“Amber,” Iris said with a sigh, looking up. “We literally room together. Plus, we do stuff all the time. We play D&D every Friday night.” She was desperately trying to stop her girlfriend’s train of thought. She loved Amber, she really did, but when she got an idea in her head it didn’t matter how insane it was, she was going to see it through.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it, Iris. We play that with all of our friends. We haven't done anything as a couple. You know, like a date.” Amber said, specifically trying to make it sound like she was trying to explain something very confusing to a little kid.

“Babe, we don’t have time for a date. We both have classes and you have a part-time job. Besides, where are we going to go? Broke college kids, remember?” she sighed, again.

“We both don’t have anything this friday. Why don’t we go to some coffee place. I’ll find somewhere cheap nearby on Google Maps. It’ll be fun!” Amber knew she was begging now, but she wanted to spend time with her girlfriend. They hadn’t gone on an official date since they started the semester. A month ago.

“Amber. If I agree to this, will you let me get back to my essay? It’s on a comparative analysis between marine life and humans,” Iris said, gesturing to her laptop open to a Google Docs page that was filled with words Amber couldn't even try to guess how to pronounce, “and it’s due Monday.”

“Yes. Yes I will.”

“Then fine, yes. We’ll go on a date this Friday. And turn the music down, you know how much I hate screamo.”

* * *

“So we still on for Friday?” Marty asked as they all sat around a table in his, Gus, and Walker’s room. It was one of the rare times that they all had a moment to eat lunch with each other. The fact that they all had such different majors meant they didn’t share many classes, so they operated under different schedules. “I’ve got a good idea of where I wanna take the campaign. No spoilers, but this next dungeon is gonna’ be _pretty_ intense.” He said, dragging out the _e_ in ‘pretty.’ “And get this. The boss is totally—”

“Actually,” Amber said, interrupting what was sure to become a ten minute rant on the way Marty had set up the next boss they were going to face. “Iris and I are going on a date. To a coffee shop off campus.”

“Sick, dude, we should double date. Marty and I haven’t done anything in forever ‘cause he’s too busy doing nerd stuff,” Gus complained, making a noise of annoyance when he got a poke to his ribs for his efforts.

“Yeah,” Marty agreed. “I mean if you guys aren’t here we can’t exactly advance. It should be fun.”

“Well I mean, I guess you guys can come. We don’t have a problem with it, right Amber?” Iris asked, looking towards her girlfriend.

“Yeah, sure, alright,” Amber said in agreement. While she had been looking forward to some alone time with her girlfriend, a double date wouldn’t be too bad. Marty and Gus would probably be making out the whole time anyways.

“Wow, way to leave the rest of us with no plans on a Friday night guys,” Andi said, laughing when Amber flipped them off in response. “Guess I'll actually have to do my work then. Huh. Weird.”

* * *

Walker was not having a good day. Which was unfortunate, because it was Friday, and Fridays were usually great and stress-free. He only had three classes that were all relatively easy, and he spent the night playing D&D with his friends instead of serving annoying customers that wanted more sugar than coffee in their cups. For some reason, however, he had agreed to switch shifts at work with someone else, so now he was stuck making coffee, and his boss was freaking out.

“Friday is music evening and the band just quit on us!” he said for, possibly, the fifth time in the past ten minutes. Walker understood, he really did, they would definitely lose business if they just suddenly stopped providing the entertainment they had promised, but there wasn't really anything that they could do about it. It wasn't like they had band on standby they could just call up. Unless…

“Hey, Earl,” Walker said, interrupting the man's ranting, pulling up Cyrus’ YouTube channel on his phone. “I might have someone who can play.”

* * *

“I don't know, Walker, this is really last minute.”

His boss had been easy to convince. Cyrus’ channel had more videos of Jonah’s band than it did videos of him and most of them were of pretty good quality. It didn’t hurt that Jonah's band wasn't awful for a small group of college kids that mainly only played covers of classic rock. Convincing Jonah to play, however, was far from easy.

“C'mon, dude, my boss is freaking out,” Walker sighed, staring at his friend. “We _need_ a band, and I kind of already told him you'd play.”

“Tell him I can't come,” Jonah said.

“But you can.”

“Not the point!” he replied. “My band isn't prepared to play anything tonight. I don't even know if they can all come!”

“I’m sure they can. And even if they can’t you can just play solo,” Walker said, trying to get Jonah to agree. Earl would be really pissed if he didn't.

“Even if they can come, we don't have any songs lined up,” Jonah protested.

“Jonah. You guys play the same five songs at every gig.”

Jonah sighed. “Fine. I'll text them and try to be there in twenty.”

“Thanks Jonah. You're a lifesaver.” Walker said, hanging up and turning to assure his boss that the band was on its way.

* * *

“Alex and Chad will be here in a few minutes. Cody couldn't make it so I'm doing vocals as well as guitar tonight. Also, Cyrus is here because he said he needs more videos of me singing so I hope your boss is okay with him recording,” Jonah told Walker as they made their way through the packed coffee house. A lot of people turned out on Fridays to watch the band play. That was definitely not helping his anxiety.

“I'm sure it’ll be fine,” Walker assured him. “Thanks so much for this, dude. My boss was freaking out. We would've lost a lot of business if we hadn't been able to find anyone so he really appreciates it. One question though. Why is Buffy here?”

Said girl materialized next to them. “I'm their manager. Obviously. As their manager, it is my job to ask, how much are they getting paid for this? I mean it _is_ a last minute performance at a busy shop on a Friday night,” Buffy said, fixing Walker with a glare he was really hoping was a joke as Jonah grimaced behind her and mouthed, _she hired herself_.

“Uh, you're going to have to talk to my boss for that. I really have no idea. He's over there, though,” Walker said, pointing to the guy with a ponytail who was frantically trying to talk to someone. He assumed it was a customer angry that the band wasn't there yet. Or maybe that he didn't have his coffee. He should probably get back to his job.

Buffy stalked off to argue their performance price with the guy while Walker went back to work, leaving Jonah and Cyrus alone to go set up the stage.

* * *

His hands were shaking.

“Cy,” Jonah said, already feeling a little out of breath. “Cyrus, I can’t do it.”

Cyrus was at his side in an instant, hands on his shoulders to ground him. “Jonah. Hey. Look at me, okay?”

Jonah made a sound he hoped was similar enough to “okay,” frantically searching Cyrus’s face for something to focus on.

“Jonah, breathe,” Cyrus said gently. “Come on. You can do this. You’re great at it. You’ve done it before. What’s so different about this time?”

“It’s just—it’s so last minute, and Cody isn’t even here and what if I mess up? You’re filming and then we can’t post it because I don’t want to mess up your channel and—”

“Relax, Jonah,” Cyrus said, emphasizing the instruction by moving a hand up from Jonah’s shoulder to his face. “You know these songs. You’re ready. You won’t mess up. And if you do, what do you tell yourself?”

Cyrus had come up with a motto for the band early on, and Jonah repeated it back: “The only way out is through.”

Cyrus smiled at him reassuringly. “You got it. So if you _do_ mess up, keep going. No one’s going to notice. You’re going to do great. And remember, I’m recording, but if you don’t want to post it, for _any_ reason, you can tell me, I won’t be mad.”

“Thank you, Cyrus.” Jonah smiled at him softly, feeling his wave of nerves go down slightly from his boyfriend’s words.

“No problem, babe. Now go up there and knock our socks of.”

“You’re such a dork.”

“I know. That's why you love me.”

“I do.” He grinned, pressing a kiss to Cyrus’s cheek before going up to the small stage.

* * *

Even though she hadn't originally been a huge fan of taking a night off from her work to go on a date, Iris had to admit she was excited. She knew she and her girlfriend should have some time alone with each other (time spent arguing over who's turn it was to play music in their dorm room didn't really count), and was happy they were finally getting it. Even if Marty and Gus were there as well. Those two were too busy making out on the couch next to them to bother them anyways.

Stepping into the coffee shop to discover that Walker was working there was a bit of a setback, though. Apparently, as he explained to them, one of his coworkers had gotten sick and he had agreed to switch shifts with them. He had no idea that this was the coffee shop they were going to. It was fine though. It was a Friday night and it was busy so it's not like Walker was hanging around talking to them. He was busy doing his job while they sat on the couch and drank coffee and ate overpriced pastries.

That was, until Jonah, Buffy, and Cyrus walked in. They realized what was happening as soon as Cyrus set up his tripods and Jonah’s bandmates showed up. He was apparently tonight's entertainment. It wasn’t that their band wasn’t good, it was just that it was annoying that they would be the ones to play the night they finally decide to have some time to themselves.

“The food here is really good,” Iris said after a few minutes of neither her nor Amber saying anything. There may be two of their friends making out next to them, one of them singing on a stage while another records it, one friend loudly talking to the manager about pay, and one friend serving coffee, but—who was she kidding? There was no silver lining here.

“Everyone is here except for Andi,” Amber grumbled. “ _Everyone_. How is that at all fair?”

“Well… I’m gonna go get another scone,” Iris muttered before making her way through the crowd to get to the register.

“Get me a hot chocolate!” Amber called after her, which Iris acknowledged with a thumbs up.

“Hey Iris,” Walker said when he saw her. “What can I get ya’?”

“A blueberry scone and a hot chocolate please,” she asked, already handing him the money.

“Oh, sorry dude, we just sold our last scone a little bit ago,” he said apologetically, pushing the money back into her hand.

“What? To who?”

“I don’t know, some white guy, I think.”

“Fuckin’ TJ,” she muttered under her breath before taking her money back and stomping back over to Amber.

“C’mon, we’re leaving, Tj took my scone.” She was already on her way to the door before Amber even registered her words.

“Hey Iris! Slow down, what about my hot chocolate?”

* * *

“You dragged me away from my hot chocolate for the park?” Amber asked, exasperated at her girlfriend. Yeah it was annoying that all of their friends, minus Andi, showed up at their date but it was no reason to storm off into the night with no explanation. Besides, she was cold out here.

The air was crisp with that chill that only came around in September and October, right before it got really cold. Neither girl had brought a jacket since they had been expecting to stay inside all night. The trees were just starting to color, not quite losing their leaves yet, but it was enough for it to be noticeable that fall was coming. Amber couldn't help but think that it set the scene rather nicely.

“Well, yeah. You wanted to have some alone time and obviously the coffee shop idea wasn’t working, so I thought we could go on a walk instead. It’s just us around this late at night, anyway.” It _was_ late. Probably nearing 11:00. It was still bright enough to see though, with all the street lamps that lighten up the path. Amber could almost hear Walker’s heated rant on light pollution just seeing it, but she had to admit it was nice.

It was like something out of a cheesy romance novel. The two of them out at a park at night under the stars, the lamps lighting up the colorful trees, walking while holding each others hands. Suddenly, Amber didn't feel so cold.

Amber looked over at Iris, smiling softly at the way the street lights danced across her face, stars reflected in her eyes. She gave a slight squeeze of the hand and moved in closer, letting herself become intoxicated with the heat of the night. Before Amber could think to say anything, Iris smiled at her in amusement.

“What?” she asked.

Iris shook her head, “Nothing,” she said, but she could stop her smile from spreading wider, “I was afraid we wouldn't be able to find some alone time but _this_ ,” she swung their interlocked fingers, “this is nice.”

“Not bad for two broke college students,” Amber agreed, stopping so suddenly that Iris stumbled slightly. Amber caught her girlfriend with her free hand. Okay, _now_ this was really starting to feel like a sickenly cheesy romance. And Amber was enjoying every minute of it.

“I'm assuming this is the part where you kiss me,” Iris joked, an airy laugh escaping her lips.

“Oh, shut up.”

And then their mouths were connecting. Soft and sweet. Nothing harsh or rushed. The night was theirs and they had all the time in the world, and it was slowly becoming one of those moments that would last a lifetime. One of those moments that you knew, no matter what happened, it was always going to be there in your memory, and Amber knew that she was going to be in this feeling of bliss forever. Or at least until class tomorrow morning.

* * *

Meanwhile back at the coffee shop, Marty and Gus came up for air only to discover they were missing the other half of the double date.

“What the shit,” Marty said as soon as he saw that the two of them were left behind, “Where's Amber and Iris?” A pause, then, “and when did Jonah get here?”

Gus shrugged, taking a moment to smooth out his shirt. “I have no idea. I was doing the same thing as you.”

“Should we call them or something? We weren't distracted for that long, were we?” Marty asked with slight concern for the other couple that had apparently disappeared while the two were locking lips.

“Marty, it’s 10:57,” Gus said, glancing at his watch in shock. That couldn't be right… Yeah nope that's what his phone said too. They had been making out for nearly half an hour. “Okay, I kinda see why they left now.”

* * *

“Okay! That's it for tonight, everybody!” Jonah said, pausing for the applause. He had to admit, despite his initial nervousness before the show having so many people cheering for them was exhilarating. “Thank you all for coming out tonight. We really appreciate…” He trailed off, noticing Buffy make her way towards the stage from where she had been talking to Earl.

“Jonah, you guys need to play one more song,” Buffy said, motioning towards the guy. “He said he'll only pay you guys the full price if you're here the whole time and right now you're a few minutes short.”

“We don’t have any other songs ready...” Jonah frowned and Cyrus sighed, shifting like he was debating shutting his cameras off.

“That’s so sad,” he said sincerely and Jonah’s eyes lit up.

“Chad, play Despacito!” he said, moving his capo as he went to the B minor chord and moved his mouth back to the microphone. The crowd that got the reference, which happened to be most of them considering this was a cheap coffee shop near a college campus, went crazy while the few that didn't were still cheering happily at the song choice.  
Most of the coffee shop now had their eyes on the boys performing. It was truly a beautiful sight, to have such a meme take place right in front of his eyes that Cyrus almost teared up a bit as he recorded the entire thing.

“De… spa… ci—”

* * *

It was nearing midnight when Amber and Iris finally decided to go back to their dorm building. Their walk had just about completely erased the memory of their failed first attempt at a date from their mind. That was, until they found everyone else in their room.

“Number one,” Amber started upon seeing them. “Why the fuck are you here.”

“Number two,” Iris continued, following the same train of thought as her girlfriend. “How the fuck are you here?” It was a few seconds of impatient silence before Jonah seemed brave enough to answer them.

“To answer number two first, you guys gave Cyrus your extra key when we were planning Andi's surprise party—hey don’t look at me, we didn't even know he still had it until a few minutes ago,” he said, completely and unapologetically throwing his boyfriend under the bus.

“And to answer your first question, we just wanted to apologize for ruining your date. We had no idea we would all end up being there at the same time as you,” Marty said. “Gus and I thought it would just be you and us.”

Amber and Iris made eye contact for a few seconds before laughing.

“Oh, don't worry, you guys didn't ruin anything,” Iris said through her giggles.

“Yeah, we had a way better time after we escaped you then we would've if you hadn't shown up at all,” Amber reassured them. “I have one question though. Andi, why are you here? You weren't even there, you have nothing to apologize for.”

“Actually, these guys were just catching me up. We apparently missed some pretty sick memes tonight,” Andi said, shrugging.

“Oh don’t worry,” Cyrus said, already bringing out his camera. “We can watch it again.”

Jonah buried his head in his hands.

* * *

## Vlog #10: Coffee Shop Mayhem

_Read More: Jonah gets called into a last minute performance so we spend that night at a coffee shop one of our friends work at, while four of our friends try and go on a date. Enjoy some of Buffy's shaky camera work :)_

_~Cyrus_

* * *

“Walker, say the intro.” Cyrus came into view, on an armchair at the coffee shop, people peacefully drinking their coffee in the background.

“No, Cyrus,” He sighed, two empty coffee mugs in each hand. “I’m busy. You know, at work.”

“C’mon it takes two seconds…” Cyrus begged, giving his best sad face. Walker rolled his eyes at his friend before staring into the camera.

“Beep boop, hello humans his name is Cy-Gay,” Walker deadpanned, causing Cyrus to groan, moving the camera slightly closer to Walker’s face.

“You didn't even do the robot voice,” Cyrus complained. Walker shrugged and said he was busy, yet again, then walked away.

“That was rude,” Cyrus mumbled before adjusting the camera onto himself again.

“Alright, guys,” he said, smiling. “Today we’re at another one of Jonah’s performances. It’s this cute little coffee shop called Sunrise Cafe that Walker works at.” He stood up and panned around the room, showing the entire place. “It’s really cute in here—”

“Cy, can you come help set up, please?” Jonah called from of the screen.

“Yeah!” Cyrus called back, before whispering. “Be right back.”

* * *

The camera was on Buffy now, looking semi-annoyed.

“Woah, Buffy, you okay?” Cyrus asked, zooming in on her facial expressions.

“The manager pisses me off.” She rolled her eyes, setting her hand on her hip. “Jonah has to play for quite a while or they won't pay him at all.”

“Do you know what songs he’s playing?” Cyrus asked, needing _something_ for the viewers. Also, he wanted to know what they were playing.

“Uh, yeah,” she nodded, smiling at the camera. “They’re playing Wonderwall, Baby, Dust in the Wind, Take me to Church, and I think one of Jonah's original songs.”

“Not _Being Around You,_ I hope,” Cyrus said fully aware his viewers wouldn't get the reference.

“I hope not. I think Andi would riot.”

“And Jonah didn't even write that,” Walker stated from somewhere off camera.

* * *

There was a choppy jumpcut to Gus and Marty making out on the couch that goes on for far too long before it jumps back to Cyrus’ face.

“Okay so it looks like Jonah is going to start soon, and I won't be able to vlog much of that since I'll be focusing on recording his band, hopefully I'll remember to link that video here.” Cyrus paused to gesture to a random spot on screen. “Buffy said she’s gonna try and get some good content for me once she figures out boring manager stuff so if the next few clips suck, that's why. See you in a bit!”

* * *

On screen appear a shaky clip of Amber and Iris holding hands and walking out the door followed by a clip of Gus and Marty, still on the couch with their lips interlocked. Then, there were few minutes of Jonah's band playing Wonderwall followed by another few minutes of them playing Dust in the Wind. After yet another shakey clip, this time of Cyrus completely focused on the cameras in front of him while trying to get the audio to record without as much feedback, the video was graced with a full three-minute clip of Walker serving customers, accompanied by another clip of Gus and Marty, literally still making out.

* * *

“We really appreciate…” The audio was suddenly fuzzy as everyone started muttering though you could vaguely hear someone say, “That’s so sad.” before suddenly, with perfect clarity, you could hear Jonah sing.

“De...spa..ci—”

Then the video went black.

* * *

Comments:

 

_27Catz:_

_Oh My God #Garty Made Out Throughout The Whole Vlog!_

_BexMack:_

_This was so good, Jonah!!_

_jb (not justin bieber):_

_thank you!_

_gaymer gurl:_

_wow this vlog was so pure_

_Rainbow Girl:_

_the fact that Cyrus films every single show Jonah has ever done since Cyrus has started up this channel means there is totally something going on that's a bit more than friendship ;)_

_Andi Shack:_

_Wish I could've made it :(_

_jb (not justin bieber):_

_you'll come next time! :) <3_

_Hana Summer:_

_____ #jandi ?? :o_

_____ Walk with walker:_

_______+______ Hana Summer fuck no. _

_MerlinRules2001:_

_Holy shit did Jonah really sing Despacito after this?_

_Cy-Gay:_

_Ye_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Questions, comments, suggestions go to our tumblrs!  
> [@an-anxious-gay-mess](https://an-anxious-gay-mess.tumblr.com)  
> [@cyrushack](https://cyrushack.tumblr.com)  
> [@he-lives-on-mirkwood](https://he-lives-on-mirkwood.tumblr.com)  
> [@jonahbeckfan4life](https://jonahbeckfan4life.tumblr.com)
> 
> Spotify playlist is [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/wgg1p2hv770g1w6cgwtr0b0s7/playlist/1mUpffqmUStxniwpEG3RRV)!
> 
>  
> 
> _comment you cowards_


	4. Kiss the Boy (Flashback)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Monday was a sad day for Jyrus shippers. So, we wrote a flashback scene for this fic for how Jonah and Cyrus got together, because it's what we deserve! The devil (disney) works hard but we work harder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Andi still uses she/her pronouns in this chapter since it's a flashback to a time before they came out. The majority of this fic takes place in the ghc’s junior year, Jonah’s senior. This chapter honestly can be read out of context, so don’t worry about how it fits with the other chapters!

Cyrus knew he was lying when he said he was over Jonah. To say there were no longer butterflies in his stomach every time Jonah smiled, or that he didn’t still get that rush every time they touched—that was a _huge_ lie. He supposed the venial sin could be forgiven, however, considering it was for the sake of his friends. Because even though he later found out Buffy’s crush hadn’t been on Jonah, and that it actually hadn’t even existed, both her and Andi had a far better shot at actually getting Jonah, and he didn’t want them to have to sacrifice pursuing him just because he had a little crush that could never go anywhere.

Not that Andi had seemed to have much trouble dating him even when she knew that Cyrus liked him. He couldn’t really blame her. Jonah was great and who wouldn’t want to date him? But he had at least thought he could get more sympathy. Well, not sympathy, more like he was hoping they could share in the mutual sense of  “holy shit he’s cute.” It seemed he was forever destined to be the sad gay boy pining over the straight boy dating his best friend.

In the end, Jonah and Andi had stayed together for nearly a whole year with the “labels,” which is longer than most people who actually knew them had expected. That year was hell for Cyrus. He thought it had been hard before, when he had actually acknowledged his feelings and had Buffy at least occasionally ask him if he was alright when the couple got a bit too much. Now, though, he was actively trying to shove down every feeling as soon as it popped up, and because he was smiling and aw-ing his way through all their interactions no one ever thought that he hadn’t been exactly truthful in his announcement that he was over Jonah.

He was happy for Andi. He really was. Jonah was a great guy, and they were good for each other. But sometimes it almost looked like Jonah was happier when he was around Cyrus than he was when he was around his girlfriend. The smile reached his eyes more often, and he used the dumb nicknames and made up slang even though it seemed he was starting to grow out of it. Cyrus figured it was just his mind playing tricks on him though. After all, why would Jonah Beck like _him_? He already had a partner, he probably didn't even like boys, and it seemed like he took every opportunity to stress how great of a _friend_ Cyrus is. He didn’t stand a chance, never had, and the sooner he convinced his mind to actually follow what he said and get over this stupid crush the better.

When “Jandi” (because, yes, they had a ship name and everything—thanks, Denise, so much) broke up, it was on good terms. That wasn’t to say there weren’t hurt feelings, though, despite agreeing to stay friends. Excluding the hot mess that was Jonah and Amber, they were each other’s first relationship, and they even shared a first kiss. Cyrus spent a good week out doing “bro” things with Jonah, comforting him in the classic guy way that had “no homo” slapped all over it, while Buffy laid on Andi’s bed and tried to offer support while she angrily crafted her feelings away.

Even then Cyrus did not allow himself to believe that he actually had a chance with Jonah. He and Jonah were great friends, and Cyrus was happy with that. He could live knowing he had never made a move to confess his feelings and messed up a good friendship in the process. Every time the older boy lingered a bit too long in a hug or made eye contact and did that dorky smile and Cyrus felt the urge to spill everything right then and there, he tried to remind himself that Jonah was just friendly. The touching and smiles didn’t mean anything, Jonah was just an affectionate friend, and he was just looking too far into it.

That was basically what Cyrus said to himself throughout his first two years of high school. He watched Andi and Walker finally get together and saw Buffy declare herself happily aromantic, but not much really happened in the romance department for him. He had a good alibi, being a closeted gay kid in the south didn’t exactly make you a prime target to get a date. Really though, he knew it was just because he still wasn’t over Jonah.  Despite all of the effort he had put into getting over it, the crush just wouldn't go away—and yeah, he was getting better at accepting it, but that didn’t make it any easier. In fact, by his junior year it got to the point where he could genuinely say he loved him.

And that was super duper inconvenient.

* * *

“Cy-guy, hey!”

Cyrus pulled his head out of his locker at the sound of his name, Jonah’s familiar voice carrying down the hall as he bounded over. “Hey, Jonah, what’s up?”

Jonah sighed, leaning against the lockers. “Nothing much. Swamped with work—and I think senioritis is kicking in already.” He laughed, but Cyrus could definitely see the tiredness in his face. “Anyway, I’m really sorry to ask but I was hoping you could help me with this one assignment—it’s not due for another week, but I’m not good at it and you know how I get about deadlines and—”

“Jonah,” Cyrus interrupted him quickly, hearing how his voice was pitching up, panicky. “I will gladly help you with your assignment. But,” he added quickly as Jonah’s face lit up, “I have one condition first.”

Jonah looked hesitant, but he nodded. “Okay.”

“One night off,” Cyrus said.

“What?”

Cyrus put his hands on Jonah’s shoulders, staring at him seriously. “Take one night off. Don’t worry about your assignments. Relax. You’re too stressed out right now, and that isn’t good.”

Jonah’s green eyes flitted around Cyrus’s face. “But—”

“Nope!” Cyrus said cheerfully. “I will help you with your homework over the weekend, but tonight you’re gonna come over and we’re gonna have a good time, just you and me.”

“I—okay,” Jonah relented, frowning slightly. “Just us?”

And. Shit. Cyrus hadn’t even realized he’d suggested it before it had happened. He couldn’t back out, or it would look suspicious, but— “Yeah, if you want.” Stupid mouth, moving faster than his brain.

“Dosh!” Jonah grinned, and, yeah, Cyrus was in love with him and his stupid sparkly eyes and dumb happy smile.

He was so fucked.

* * *

“So, what’s the plan Cy-guy?” Jonah asked, throwing his backpack in the corner of the room before Cyrus could start grilling him on if there was any homework in it. They had visited each other enough times to get past the awkward “I’m going to sit on the corner of your bed and not say anything” phase, thankfully. Jonah happily plopped himself down right next to Cyrus. (He barely resisted the urge to make a Netflix and chill joke. This absolutely is a gay thing, outing yourself through jokes.)

“My mom’s making dinner, if you want to stay, but I figured we could just watch movies or something until then. I’m not done catching you up on Marvel, yet,” Cyrus offered.

“Sounds good,” Jonah said with a happy grin. “I’ll stay and eat if your mom already knows to expect me.”

“Yeah I told her you might stay so it's fine. Now come on, we’ve got a Civil War to watch.”

* * *

Cyrus’ bed wasn’t small. He had a queen, which meant there was plenty of room on it. And yeah, they were watching the movie on his laptop, but he knew Jonah wasn’t really interested in the movies all that much and was just watching them because he also got to force Cyrus to watch movies _he_ liked. There was no need to be so close. So Cyrus could not figure out why they always ended up sitting so close. Their shoulders were touching and Cyrus could feel Jonah’s chest rising as he breathed. There was a time when he would have killed to be this close to him, but now it was torture. He had gotten pretty good at pretending things involving Jonah didn’t bother him, though.

“Hey, Cyrus,” Jonah said after a while when the credits started to play. The two had been mostly quiet for the movie, save for Cyrus’ commentary (“this movie is so useless, give me more Sam Wilson!”).

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for convincing me to do this. You were right. I didn’t realize how much that stress was affecting me until you made me take a night off. You’re… you’re a really good friend.”

Cyrus felt the familiar tug on his heart he got whenever Jonah called him a friend; that sting of unconfirmed rejection—but then something weird happened. Jonah’s face twisted.

“You know what? I don’t think I can do this anymore,” he announced suddenly.

“What are you talking about? Do what?” Cyrus asked.

Something in Jonah’s face smoothed out, and his jaw tensed like he had settled on a decision. “I’m going to college in less than a year. I don’t think I can leave having never done this.”

“Jonah?” Cyrus was definitely a little scared now—his tone and expression were steely and resigned, so unlike the usual Jonah, and Cyrus didn’t like it one bit.

As he spoke, Jonah twisted to face him without moving back any further on the bed. And before Cyrus knew it, there was only about an inch of space between their noses.

Then they were kissing.

It was over as soon as it started, more of a peck than a kiss, but it was still quite possibly the best thing that Cyrus had ever experienced. Not to be overdramatic or anything. When Jonah pulled back his entire face was lit up with one of the brightest smiles Cyrus had ever seen before he seemingly realized what he had done.

“Oh, shit! Cyrus, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that,” he apologized, but Cyrus took it as a good sign that he was at least still looking at him.

“You shouldn’t have?” Cyrus asked, still sort of processing.

Jonah flinched back a little, and Cyrus reached out for his arm before pulling back. “Yeah, I mean. I doubt you even like me and I should have asked before I did that anyways and—”

“Wait, wait, go back. Me? Not like you?” Cyrus almost laughed. “Jonah, I have had a crush on you the size of the Empire State Building since seventh grade. Did you really not notice?”

“What? No?” Jonah replied meekly, almost asking. Despite himself, Cyrus really couldn’t help but laugh this time.

“Wow. I honestly thought you knew and all the times you kept calling me a friend was your way of telling me too cool it,” he confessed.

Jonah shook his head emphatically. “No way! Cyrus, I’ve liked you for forever now and I thought if I kept calling you that I would get over my crush on you.”

“Well, so much for gaydar,” Cyrus said, always one to break up sincere moments with joke.

“Hey, my bi-fi picked up on you being gay just fine. It just didn’t pick up on the fact that you like me I guess.”

The two just smiled at each other, basking in the relief of finally confessing feelings they had been hiding for far too long.

“So… I guess I should officially ask you,” Jonah smiled. “Will you be my boyfriend?”

Cyrus responded by leaning in for another kiss, this time a proper one that went on for much longer. “Of course.”

* * *

“So, seventh grade, huh?” Jonah asked. They were sitting out on Cyrus’ porch, having already finished dinner but not quite ready to leave each other’s presences yet.

“Yeah. I didn’t really admit I liked you, even to myself, until you started dating Andi—the first time. The second time I tried to convince myself I was over you,” he explained.

“What made you realize you weren’t?” Jonah asked. “Because that would have sucked for me.”

“Amber told me she spit in the burgers at The Spoon.”

“ _What_?” Cyrus was really glad Jonah hadn’t been drinking anything because he definitely would have started choking with how big of a gasp he just took.

“Yeah. She took one look at my face, displaying many different emotions, and said, ‘You still like Jonah.’”

Jonah laughed, his nose scrunching up. “That’s all it took?”

Cyrus lightly hit his shoulder. “Don’t look at me! I never even told her anything about liking you. She’s got scary magic powers.”

“Did she actually spit on the burgers?” Jonah asked after a moment with a look of disgust on his face, presumably remembering all the times he had eaten a burger from The Spoon.

“I don’t think so?”

The two sat together in silence for a few moments. “I should probably get home,” Jonah reluctantly sighed in disappointment.

“I can walk with you!” Cyrus said before correcting himself to speak in a much less excited tone. “I mean, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure,” Jonah said, smiling and grabbing Cyrus’ hand.

* * *

“So, what’s your story?” Cyrus asked while they walked.

“What story?”

“Your ‘liking me for forever’ story,” Cyrus said, doing air quotes with his free hand.

“There’s not much of a story to tell. A lesbian cryptid didn’t reveal to me a dark secret that could make her lose her job,” Jonah said, hoping his slight blush wouldn’t be able to be seen in the dark. No such luck.

“Aw, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Cyrus reassured him, smiling lightly.

“No, it’s just that it's kinda embarrassing to think I pined after you for all of high school.”

“Tell me about it,” Cyrus said with an eye roll. “Try all of middle school and high school.”

“There really isn’t much of a story. I realized I liked you, realized I was bi, realized I didn’t have a chance, then realized I didn’t want to screw up our friendship.”

“Until tonight,” Cyrus said with a smile.

“Until tonight,” Jonah said back to him.

They walked in comfortable silence for a moment before Cyrus sighed heavily.

“What?” Jonah asked.

Cyrus shrugged, squeezing his hand. “Just realized we gotta tell the group at some point. Buffy, Andi…”

“Hmm,” Jonah agreed. “Another day. Soon, I promise, but let’s just… have this for now.” He slowed his pace and looked at Cyrus, face thrown into shadow by the moon. “Is that okay?”

Cyrus took the image of Jonah’s smile in, reflected on the situation—was he really living this? Was he really standing in the dark with his best friend and longtime crush liking him back? Did Jonah really kiss him earlier?

“Yeah,” he said, finding his voice. “Definitely okay with me.”

The way Jonah kissed him right after was worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [the spotify playlist actually exists!](https://open.spotify.com/user/wgg1p2hv770g1w6cgwtr0b0s7/playlist/1mUpffqmUStxniwpEG3RRV)  
>  If you have any song suggestions to add, or want to send us messages, send them into our tumblrs!  
> [@an-anxious-gay-mess](https://an-anxious-gay-mess.tumblr.com)  
> [@cyrushack](https://cyrushack.tumblr.com)  
> [@he-lives-on-mirkwood](https://he-lives-on-mirkwood.tumblr.com)  
> [@jonahbeckfan4life](https://jonahbeckfan4life.tumblr.com)  
> Also! To reiterate, we will be updating this story (hopefully!) every single Friday, with mini bonus chapters on the occasional Tuesday.


	5. Take Me Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A trip home turns into an emotional journey for Andi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter deals with mild anxiety, misgendering, and coming out <3

Gus was, to put it simply, not having a good day. When he first heard that they would have to give an oral presentation of their next paper, because of course he would land one of those professors, he had of course been nervous. However what had started as a little bit of healthy anxiety, was quickly on the downward slope to a full blown panic attack.

First, their professor decided to allow them to choose their own topics. This meant that instead of getting started right away, he had to waste some of the two weeks they were given to even pick one out. That took way longer than it probably should have, since he kept insisting every idea he came up with was boring or someone else had already picked it. So three days later, he finally had a topic he was happy with. Then he had to actually write something. It had taken him another day to just pick out a good opening sentence. He had five pages of notebook paper, front and back, with what was basically the same sentence over and over again crossed  out with notes written as to why he couldn’t use _that_ one.

Then he had to work on the actual paper. Writing papers normally isn’t this hard for him. While he was a computer sciences major and preferred computers languages to spoken ones, he had no problem writing reports most of the time. It was the looming threat of having to present this in front of his professor and class that had him working nearly exclusively on it for a week. He had probably deleted more words than were in his final 7 page paper.

That means that, in the end, he had two days to write the actual presentation part. He obviously couldn’t just read the paper itself, so he had carefully gone through the entire thing multiple times and written a set of notecards to use instead. Notecards that he had somehow, against all logic, lost. Twenty minutes before he was supposed to be in class.

That all led up to Marty finding him hyperventilating in their room

“Gus? What’s wrong?” Marty asked upon seeing him, sitting down near him on the bed but far enough away that he wasn’t crowding him. Their little group had enough experience with panic attacks to know that that would be the opposite of helpful. 

“I just—” Gus was speaking through gasping breaths. “I don’t know its so _stupid—”_

“Hey, if it’s upsetting you this much it’s not stupid,” Marty reassured him.

“It’s not even that big of a deal! I just have to give a stupid presentation in front of my class and my professor and _—_ ” It was his own breathing that cut him off this time.

“Hey, babe it's alright, come on, in for four, hold it for seven, out for eight, here follow me.” Marty slowed his own breaths to the pattern and waited until Gus was no longer gasping for breath before he continued. “There you go, you got it.”

“Thanks,” he muttered with his face pressed against his knees. Marty decided to let it slide, knowing his boyfriend it would probably only make him more upset if he was looking at him.

“So you have to give a presentation?” Marty uncertainly prompted after a few moments where neither of them spoke.

“Yeah, in like 20 minutes,” Gus said with a shaky laugh.

“Are you going to go? I can tell your professor that you got sick if you don’t think you can.” 

“No I need to be able to do this, its just, I lost my notecards, and I spent so long on them, and I can’t stand the idea of everyone being so focused on me,” Gus explained.

“Would it help if I assure you that in my year and two months at college I’m pretty sure I’ve never paid attention to a single presentation someone has given? I don’t think I know anyone who has either. And if I assure you that 90% of the kids in that room are going to be thinking about either how stoned and hungover they are or how they’re really hoping they don’t have to go today because they did not do this report?”

“Honestly? A little, yeah,” Gus said, cracking his first smile since he had noticed his notecards were missing. The smile slowly slid for his face as he had a realization.

“I’m such an idiot,” he moaned, hiding his face in his hands.

“What? Gus, what’s wrong?” Marty asked, concerned.

“I just remembered that I put my notecards in my folder with my report. I just wasted so much time looking for them when they were in the first place I should have looked.” He half-heartedly glared when his boyfriend laughed at his misfortune before giving up and laughing too.

“You know I think I have a new-found appreciation for Jonah. That was fucking hell.”

“Don’t tell me I have to compete with Jonah Beck again.” 

“Don’t worry, I’d never do that to you. You’d have no chance,” he replied, laughing at Marty’s fake pout.

“I love you,” Marty said seriously after they had both finished laughing.

“I love you, too,” Gus said with a goofy grin on his face that was quickly replaced with panic.

“FUCK I have to be in my classroom in five minutes and its across campus,” he said, sprinting out the door with his backpack to a call of ‘bye babe!’ from Marty.

* * *

“Andi, did you get the email?” Buffy asked, walking into their dorm room. Walking was a bit generous though. With how happy she seemed it looked more like skipping.

“What email?” Andi asked, looking up from their laptop.  

“Andi,” Buffy chastised in a fake stern voice, “you need to check your inbox more often. If it weren’t for me you’d have no idea what was ever going on.” She added an exaggerated sigh to the end of her sentence. 

“Har har,” Andi said, tossing their pillow at the girl. “Just tell me what extremely important email I was supposed to get?”

“Our intro to english class tomorrow just got canceled!”

“I feel like I’m going to regret asking this, but why is that that amazing? Classes get cancelled all the time.”

“It’s amazing _because,_ ” Buffy said, throwing Andi’s pillow back at them, “That means we basically have a long weekend. We both only had one other class tomorrow besides that, and they’re early in the day.”

“Ohh you’re right!” Andi said in realization. “You know what we should do?”

“What?”

“Take a trip back to Shadyside! It’s only a two hour trip, so if we leave right after our classes tomorrow we can stay the night and then leave after lunch Saturday.”

“I don’t know Andi, isn’t that a little spontaneous? Plus, we kinda need to call our parents to make sure they’ll even be home.”

“I’m sure they will be. And come on, are you seriously trying to tell me you’re not dying for some baby taters right now?” Andi asked, hoping Buffy would agree. They could always just go without her but it’d be more fun to have someone keep them company on the two hour drive.

“I mean, I have so much homework to do,” Buffy argued.

“Buffy, you were just bragging that you had all of your work done yesterday.”

“Alright, fine, but we do still have to call our parents.”

* * *

 

“What do you _mean_ you’re taking off tomorrow?” Marty demanded over lunch after Buffy explained her and Andi’s plan. “Why does stuff keep happening on Fridays? I have this whole campaign planned out and no one seems to appreciate it!”

“Your campaign is shit,” Walker deadpanned.

* * *

“Beep Boop. Hello humans my name i- ah achoo!” Cyrus was attempting to film one of his usual blogs one morning before being interrupted by a sneezing fit. “-s Cy-gay.”

“Cyrus,” Jonah’s exasperated voice cut Cyrus off before he could continue the vlog. “You’re sick. Go back to sleep.”

“But Jonah,”  Cyrus whined. “I have to get that sweet content. My fans deserve it!”

“Bex doesn’t want to hear you sneezing, Cyrus. Seriously you’re just gonna make yourself feel worse if you don’t rest.”

“I know you’re right, but I hate having to admit it,” Cyrus conceded. “I just don’t want to have to wait until I get better to record something,” he said with a sigh, flipping off the camera.

“I’d offer to record for you, but I’ve got classes all day today,” Jonah said apologetically.

“It’s fine, I know you don’t have time right now,” Cyrus said, right as they heard a knock on their door.

“Oh, hey, Buffy,” Jonah said, jogging across the room and opening the door. “What are you doing here?”

“Just came to see how Cyrus is doing and to see if you guys needed any more cold medicine,” Buffy replied, letting herself into their room.

“I’m fine, and we’re alright on medicine,” Cyrus said from where he had buried himself back in his covers.

“I mean Cyrus would be fine if he stopped trying to make videos while he was sick,” Jonah shot back.

“Cyrus,” Buffy said with a sigh. “I thought we had already been over this. Multiple times. Seriously though, you get sick way to often, drink some milk.”

“Okay one, I resent that, I get sick a perfectly normal amount, you all just have freakishly good immune systems. Two, yes I know, but I just hate having to go without uploading anything for so long.”

“Why don’t you just have one of us record something for you? I mean, I know we aren’t film majors but we can still operate a camera, Cyrus.”

“You guys are all busy with classes, though,” Cyrus reasoned. That had originally been his plan until he remembered that they all still had things to do while he was stuck in bed.

“Andi and I don’t. We both only have one class today and then we’re taking a road trip back to Shadyside, remember?”

“Oh I completely forgot! You guys should vlog the trip.” Buffy laughed.

“That was kinda what I was implying, yeah. I can’t promise you anything super interesting will happen, though. It’s probably just going to be us just really loudly singing along to the playlist.”

“Wait, what playlist?” Jonah asked, rejoining the conversation.

“ _The Playlist,_ Jonah,” Buffy said. 

“Ohh. You mean that awful mega one Gus insists on using all the time?” he asked.

“Exactly.”

“Just try not to get me a copyright strike, Driscoll.”

“People have to know your channel actually exist for that, Goodman.”

“I’m too sick to argue. Just bring me back some baby taters,” Cyrus replied. “I miss them.”

“Cyrus, they’ll be ice cold by the time we get back.”

“We can’t all take spontaneous trips back home, Buffy, allow me my small comforts.”

“Fine, but you’re giving me the money for them.”

“Hey where is Andi by the way?” Jonah asked right before Buffy moved to exit the room. “I haven't seen them all day.”

“Oh, they were feeling really tired today for some reason so they're taking a nap. I'm hoping they didn't catch something off of Cyrus.”

“They better not have, I'm still counting on those baby taters!” Cyrus called. 

* * *

Andi had to admit they probably didn’t take in any of what their professor had said during their History of Art class that morning. They were just too busy vibrating with excitement over the prospect of going back home again, even if it was for less than a day and a half. It was made worse by the fact that Buffy’s Intro to Government class got out later than their class so they were left waiting in the car for half an hour impatiently. They had to stop themself from checking the time on their phone every five minutes, knowing it would only make the time go by slower.

When Buffy finally got there, backpack full of clothes and textbooks in hand, Andi tried to hide how excited they were but, of course, Buffy saw right through that.

“Are you really that excited to go to the Spoon?” Buffy asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Are you not?” Andi replied, mirroring the expression.

“Okay you’re right I can’t wait, I want a chocolate milkshake so bad right now.”

“Thought so,” Andi said, pulling out of the lot yawning.

“Didn’t you take a nap earlier?” Buffy asked.

“Yeah, but I’ve just been tired a lot lately,” They waved their hand, dismissing it. “It’s probably just stress.”

“Okay...” Buffy mumbled.

  
“Oh shoot,” Buffy said after the two had sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes. “Cyrus wanted me to vlog this for him so he has something to upload while he’s sick.”

“It’s gonna be a pretty boring vlog if it’s just us sitting in a car, Buffy.” Andi said while keeping their eyes on the road.

“Andi, turn on _The Playlist._ ”

“ _The Playlist?_ ” Andi asked skeptically.

“ _The Playlist_ ,” Buffy confirmed, flipping the camera on. “There’s no other choice. Just let me do the intro before you start it.”

“Hi Bex and the two other people that follow this channel, I bet you’re wondering where Cyrus is. Turns out, he needs some milk because he’s sick again. So instead, you’re gonna see us mad lads,” here she stopped to jab the camera at Andi, “taking a road trip to our hometown.” This seemed to be the cue for Andi to turn _The Playlist_ on, as _“I Wanna Dance With Somebody”_ started blasting through the speakers. It was going to be a fun two hours. 

* * *

Once they got into town, Andi had passed by the Spoon and headed to Bex’s apartment, much to Buffy’s dismay.

“Baby taters!” Buffy yelped, the moment she knew they weren’t going to the Spoon right away.

“Bex is already expecting us,” Andi chuckled, rolling their eyes. “Plus, we have _two days_ to get some baby taters.”

“Fine.” She fake pouted, though the excitement to see Bex was evident on her face.

“BEX!” Andi called from outside, shutting the car off and making their way to the front door, followed by Buffy. The two rushed towards the door and Andi knocked their hand against the door rapidly. The door was answered by a tall woman with long, wavy hair.

“Andi! Buffy!” she greeted, pulling the two into her arms for a group hug. Andi giggled, their face pressed against a green and pink tye-dye shirt.

“Hi, Olivia,” Andi smiled, pulling away.

“How are my favorite kids doing?” Olivia beamed.

“We’re good,” Buffy yawned, looking up at Bex’s girlfriend. “is Bex home?”

“Of course!” she nodded, leading them inside.

Bex and Olivia had started dating early in Andi's junior year. They had meet when Olivia went to the Fringe to get a makeover before going to a pride event and Bex had tried a cheesy pick up line on her. Olivia had just laughed and said that Bex should at least buy her dinner first. They had been together ever since, and Olivia had moved in about a month before Andi went off to college.

The apartment was a lot nicer than is was when Andi and Bex lived there. For one, there was only need for one bedroom. Secondly, Olivia was a _way_ better interior decorator than Bex was.

“Mom!” Andi ran and wrapped their arms around Bex as soon as they saw her. “I missed you so much,” they said into her shoulder, still engulfed in the hug. 

“I missed you too,” Bex said before letting go after one final squeeze. “I know I’m going to sounds like some stereotypical mom here, but you really have grown so much. I still can’t believe you’re in college now.”

“I know, right?” Andi replied with a small laugh. “It seems like just yesterday I was turning thirteen and worrying about hiding a scooter from Ham and Cece.”

“Speaking of Ham and Cece,” Bex said, seemingly just now remembering. “They invited us over tonight for dinner, and we’ll probably just sleep over there. You’re welcome to come if you want, Buffy.”

“Thanks, Bex,” she said with a smile. “I’m gonna go see my parents for a bit, but if they say it’s okay I’ll come. It’ll be nice to see those two again.”

“Do you need a ride?” Andi asked.

“Nah, it's only a couple minute walk. Spend some time with your mom, I’ll see you tonight.” Buffy waved her hand. “But you can take my stuff to Ham and Cece’s for me.”

“So, Andi, anything in particular you want to do while you’re here?” Bex asked once Buffy had left.

“Not really,” Andi said. “I just want to hang out with you guys for a while. Get caught up on all the latest drama back here in Shadyside.”

“How about we talk about it over a movie?” Olivia offered, already opening Netflix on the TV.

“Sounds good,” they agreed with a smile. “Just let me go out my phone on charge real quick. I was playing music the whole way here so it's almost dead.” They started to look through their bag for their phone charger. When they couldn't find it at first glance they started to dump out the contents and still came up empty.

“Um, Andi, what are you doing?” Bex asked, concerned as she watched her kid dump their backpack out in the floor.

“Tj stole my fucking charger!” Andi exclaimed angrily after double checking all the pockets in their bag.

“Who's Tj?” Bex asked, no less concerned and now prepared to deal with a bully.

“No one. Just some asshole cryptid responsible for all the problems in my life.”

“Oh. Okay. Asshole cryptid. Yup. Got it,” Bex responded. “So what do you want to watch?”

“Whatever is fine with me.” They sighed, plugging their phone into Olivia’s charger. But of course as soon as they plugged it in, their phone buzzed to life with an incoming call from Cece.

“Hi!” Andi answered, turning the phone on speaker.

“Andi!” Celia’s and Ham’s voices rang out from the phone through the small living room. “Are you at Bex’s place?” Ham asked.

“Yep!” Andi grinned. “I’ll be over there soon. I miss you guys.”

“We miss you too, Andi,” Celia said. “We can’t wait to see you. We need our granddaughter again!” Andi really wished a comment that small didn’t hurt that much.

“I can’t wait to see you too Cece,” Andi said, trying to inject as much positivity as was possible into their voice.

“You’ll have to tell us all about college! You’ve grown into such a fine young woman. We’re so proud of you,” Cece continued and Andi couldn’t help the small flinch this time. They didn’t miss the look Bex and Olivia shared, either.

“Yeah. I’ll be over soon, just wanted to catch up with Mom for a bit.” They said barely waiting for Ham and Cece to say goodbye before hanging up. Bex and Olivia were still sharing glances over their head while they plugged their phone back in.

“Andi…” Bex started slowly, giving her kid a look. “You know you should probably tell them.”

“But—” Andi started, but they were cut off.

"Andi, they have a kid and grandchild that are queer as fuck, they come to pride events with us," Bex smiled reassuringly. "They know I’m bi and you’re pan and your boyfriend is trans. Their daughter is literally engaged to a woman, they're going to be okay with it."

“You’re… wait, what? _Engaged_?” Andi was momentarily thrown off from the current conversation of them coming out. 

"Surprise!” Olivia piped in, giving Andi the brightest smile.

"We were gonna tell you at Ham and Cece's," Bex shrugged, grinning. "But, anyways, we're engaged, and you're coming out to them. You don't deserve to get misgendered everytime you talk to them, Andi.”

“I know, I know, and I know I shouldn’t keep this from them when they’re obviously going to be okay with it it’s just—” Andi cut themself off with a frustrated noise as they realized they couldn’t find the right words. 

“What is it?” Olivia asked patiently, and though the woman had only been in Andi’s life for a few years, they really did trust her. They spent another moment organizing their thoughts before trying again.

“It just feels like I’m robbing them of something, you know? I know they’d never think that, but they’re always talking about how much they love me as a daughter or a granddaughter or a young woman. It feels like I’m taking their little girl away from them.”

“Oh, Andi,” Olivia said sympathetically, putting a hand on their shoulder.

“You know they wouldn't think that. They’re gonna love you no matter what. It may take them a while to get used to it but they aren’t going to be anything but accepting,” Bex reassured their kid, wrapping them into another hug.

“You’re right. I don’t want to put this off anymore. I don’t want to have to deal with another phone call where I get misgendered, but I at least owe it to them to have this conversation face to face and not over the phone, so I’m going to have to do it tonight,” Andi said, their voice somehow sounding equally uncertain and determined.

“Wow, look at you!” Olivia said impressed. “You’re such a brave kid. I’m sure everything is going to be okay, your grandparents are very accepting people. They were so happy for us when we announced our engagement.”

“Thank you, Olivia. And you’re right, they’ve always been so…” Andi trailed off as that last sentence registered in their brain. “Wait a minute. Did you tell Ham and Cece you got engaged before you told me?” they asked in a fake offended tone.

“Hey, we only told them a week ago and we were going to tell you tonight! We just wanted to do it face to face,” Bex said, raising her hands in surrender.

“I’ll consider forgiving you… if you buy be some baby taters?” Andi asked with a smile.

“Ugh, fine, you little freeloader. When are you going to get a job anyways?”

“Hey! Tumblr commissions and selling crafts on etsy is a completely valid source of income, excuse you.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure.” 

* * *

They decided in the end that Bex and Olivia would ride to Ham and Cece’s on Bex’s motorcycle while Andi would pick Buffy up, to avoid having to cram everyone into one car. It also offered the advantage of giving Andi a chance to fill Buffy in on their plan on the way there.

“So I guess I’m coming out to Ham and Cece tonight.” Andi wished they could say they looked at Buffy and laughed as if they had just told a joke, and that they’re eyes weren’t glued to the road even though they were on a deserted street in a small neighborhood at night, and that their hands weren’t in a white knuckle grip on the steering wheel.

“Oh my gosh, Andi! That’s great. Do you want me to wait out here while you tell them?” Buffy offered. She was so happy for her friend. She had been trying to convince Andi to come out ever since she noticed how upset they seemed after phone calls with their grandparents.

“Could—” Andi found their mouth was suddenly incredibly dry and swallowed. “Could you come in with me?” they asked. Buffy caught on to just how nervous they were then. They’d normally insist that they could do it themself and that they were fine.

“Hey, it’s going to be alright, Andi.” Buffy said grabbing one of their hands. They were sitting in the driveway now and the others were waiting for them inside.

“I know, they’re going to say they still love me and everything will be peachy, so I don’t know why I’m so scared of doing this.”

“Hey, it’s alright to be scared, even if it is slightly irrational. I was scared to tell you guys I was aroace even though basically everyone knew romance was never going to be a big part of my life. Coming out is always scary, no matter the circumstances, and you’re incredibly brave for doing this,” Buffy reassured, never letting go of their hand.

“Thanks, Buffy,” Andi said with a grateful smile. “Would you mind still coming in with me?” They asked agan.

“Of course,” Buffy replied with a smile. And then they stepped out of the car. 

* * *

“Andi!” Ham called happily, wrapping them into a hug as soon as they stepped through the doorway. “It's good to see you again, it felt so much longer than just 2 months.”

“Alright, let the girl breath, Ham.” Celia said with a chuckle that definitely showed how much she had changed since Bex had come back into their life. Bex, Olivia, and Buffy fixed them with identical sympathetic looks and Andi had to resist the urge to sigh. “Dinner is ready. I made pork so I’m glad that you chose Buffy and not Cyrus as your unannounced guest,” Celia continued, glancing at the girl in question.

“Actually, Cece, I have something to say before we eat,” Andi said, trying to calm the part of their brain that was screaming “ _don’t do it you idiot! Abort abort abort!”_

“Oh, what is it?” Ham asked curiously. 

“I think we should all sit down for this,” Bex said, knowing it would help Andi feel more at ease.

“Oh god,” Celia said with a look of horror on her face. “You’re not pregnant are you? I’m way too young to be a great grandma.” Despite how scared they still were that actually got Andi to laugh. 

“No, Cece, I’m not pregnant, remember that it’s not possible in my current relationship,” they assured her, though they didn’t say anything else until everybody had sat down in the living room, Buffy sitting right next to them and squeezing their hand.

“There’s not really an easy way to say this,” they started, taking a few deep breaths. “So I guess I have to come right out and say it.” They closed their eyes for a moment trying to build up the nerve. “I’m nonbinary. I’m… not a girl.” They just blurted it out in the end. The few seconds of waiting while their grandparents processed the information felt like an eternity to them. They were almost too scared to open their eyes and see what their expressions looked like.

A soft _“Oh, Andi,”_ from Cece finally brought them back to reality though as they opened their eyes only to close them again as they were pulled into a bone-crushing hug.

“This doesn’t change anything, Andi, we still love you no matter what. That will always be true.” Andi was very thankful they were all kind enough to not mention the tears in their eyes.

“So, name and pronouns?” Celia asked and Andi definitely considered themself the luckiest trans kid in the world because their grandparents were the _best._

“Name’s still Andi, it doesn’t bother me, and pronouns are they and them,” they informed her with a smile that was threatening to tear their face. “Also, I’d rather you not use words like ‘girl’ and ‘daughter’ to describe me.”

“I think we can manage that.” Ham said, taking his turn for a hug.

“I told you it was going to be alright.” Buffy whispered to them later, when they were all sitting down to eat and all the hugs had been dealt with. 

“Yeah. I should’ve known better than to doubt you. The Buffy Driscoll is never wrong.” Andi said with a laugh. 

“Damn right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [the spotify playlist actually exists!](https://open.spotify.com/user/wgg1p2hv770g1w6cgwtr0b0s7/playlist/1mUpffqmUStxniwpEG3RRV)  
>  If you have any song suggestions to add, or want to send us messages, send them into our tumblrs!  
> [@an-anxious-gay-mess](https://an-anxious-gay-mess.tumblr.com)  
> [@cyrushack](https://cyrushack.tumblr.com)  
> [@he-lives-on-mirkwood](https://he-lives-on-mirkwood.tumblr.com)  
> [@jonahbeckfan4life](https://jonahbeckfan4life.tumblr.com)  
> To reiterate, we will be updating this story (hopefully!) every single Friday, with mini bonus chapters on the occasional Tuesday.


	6. Vlog #14: Road Trip! (Plus: how to come out as trans)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Read More:_  
>  I’m sick so Buffy and Andi took over my channel for the weekend. Join them for aggressive playlist playing during a two hour car ride, and some sweet baby tater and milkshake action.  
> The Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/user/wgg1p2hv770g1w6cgwtr0b0s7/playlist/1mUpffqmUStxniwpEG3RRV  
> Links to the resources Andi mentioned:  
> Trans lifeline- US- 877-565-8860 Canada-877-330-6366  
> Tips on how to come out and to react when someone comes out to you- https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/may/14/10-tips-how-come-out-lgbt-family-friends-gay-lesbian  
> Tips on coming out as trans- https://www.ditchthelabel.org/8-tips-for-coming-out-as-trans/  
> ~Cyrus

The video started with Buffy aiming the camera at herself in a car, with Andi in the background driving.

“Hi Bex, and the two other people that follow this channel, I bet you’re wondering where Cyrus is. Turns out he needs some milk because he’s sick again! So, instead of the usual Cyrus vlog, you’re gonna see us mad lads taking a road trip to our hometown.”

 _“I Wanna Dance With Somebody”_ started playing abruptly, which cued a reaction of Andi and Buffy singing along to it rather passionately, though only the beginning and ending of the song was seen in the video.

“So what you’re hearing right here is _The Playlist._ An unholy combination of nine peoples’ very different music tastes in one Spotify playlist that is over thirteen hours long and constantly evolving. We normally only pull this bad boy out during parties because everyone thinks every song, except the songs they added, suck. However, Andi and I decided we should grace you with the existence of this abomination. Prepare to get whiplash!” she explained over the Glee cast version of “ _Don’t Stop Believing.”_

There were a few clips of the one of the two screaming along to the lyrics while the other laughed, mixed with clips of them both cringing at the song that had just come on. Buffy’s rendition of “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy _,”_ which had been graciously cut down to only 10 seconds, was accompanied by white text on the screen saying _[I had to listen to the whole 4 minutes and 8 seconds of this -Gus]_

There was also a few clip of the two singing along to _“_ Mr. Brightside _”_ at the same time, and one where they went straight from “In Blood” by _Parkway Drive_ to “Breaking Free” from _High School Musical_ without blinking an eye.

 

Afterwards, there was some music, playing “This Town” behind a montage of Buffy and Andi going to different places in Shadyside. There was a clip of them laughing, trying on clothes at the Nine Lives, and there was a clip of each of them getting their makeup done by Bex at The Fringe. There was even clips of them posing in front of the middle school and high school. The montage ended with them dramatically walked towards the Spoon.

* * *

There was a jump cut to Andi and Buffy sitting at a table at the Spoon.

“Hey Cyrus,” Buffy smiled serenely, looking directly at the camera. “So sad you weren’t able to accompany us. The baby taters and milkshake combo,” She took a dramatic pause to dunk a tater in her chocolate milkshake, “is definitely still as good as I remember.” Andi rolled their eyes and chuckled.

“Seriously,” Andi said. “When we were kids, our diet consisted of mostly baby taters and milkshakes from this exact diner.”

Buffy nodded, taking a dramatic drink from her milkshake. “I think my organs might have become baby taters at one point.”

“Gross, Buffy,” Andi rolled their eyes, smiling. “Remember when Amber worked here? She wasn’t good at her job. No offense!” they added quickly. “Anyways, on another note, this weekend has been crazy.”

“It really has,” Buffy agreed, nodding.

“We went on this mini road trip, coming to the home town that we grew up in.” Andi sighed wistfully, their eyes scanning the Spoon.

“We got to take over this vlog, and as you can see,” Buffy smirked. “We gave Cyrus a run for his money.”

Andi rolled their eyes again. “And we got to see our families,” they said, laughing. “And I came out to my grandparents yesterday.” Buffy looked at her best friend, putting a hand on their shoulder.

“It was really crazy, guys,” they started slowly. “I've always been so terrified to tell them… tell them that I'm not a girl.” They took a deep breath.

“Andi is so brave, guys,” Buffy smiled, and Andi smiled back.

“Thanks, Buffy.” They looked at the camera again.

“Anyways,” Andi said. “It was worth it. They're supportive and everything's going to be so great now. I just… I wanted to take this time and this opportunity to say, coming out is scary. It's terrifying, but it does help. Of course, they're going to have slip ups, but they're going to try. They finally know who I am, and I'm finally able to be myself around them. I know not everyone can, but if you think that it's safe… coming out can be scary but it will be so much better for you if and when you're able to. I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I feel like I’m officially and completely able to be free one hundred percent of the time. If you need some help coming out to your friends or family, or would like to know how to react when someone comes out to you, I’m adding links in the description! Stay safe and I love you all!”   

* * *

Outtakes:

5 different subsequent clips of Cyrus trying to do his intro and interrupting himself by sneezing or coughing. 

Another minute long clip of Buffy singing _“She thinks my tractor's sexy.”_

Andi trying to sing along to YMCA and choking on their own spit for a solid 20 seconds while Buffy laughs.

* * *

 

Comments:

 

_Cy-gay: (pinned comment)_

_Great job, guys, glad I could trust you to steal my channel for the weekend. Congrats once again Andi :)_

_Cy-gay:_

_Although don’t think I didn't notice that you didn't do the intro_

_27Catz:_

_Buffy is so funny she should be in videos more often_

_CantOutTuffTheBuff:_

_Damn right_

_BexMack:_

_I’m so proud of you Andi! And it was great seeing you again. Wish you could come visit more often._

_Andi Shack:_

_Thanks! And I know me too :(_

_Phantomofthe21pilotsdisco_

_Found this video going through a trans rabbit hole somehow and these guys seem pretty funny, consider me subscribed._

_Pikachuchootrain:_

_Buffy’s music taste is… questionable_

_Shook To The Core:_

_I love Cyrus but this vlog was really funny and cute, good job Andi and Buffy_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [the spotify playlist actually exists!](https://open.spotify.com/user/wgg1p2hv770g1w6cgwtr0b0s7/playlist/1mUpffqmUStxniwpEG3RRV)  
>  If you have any song suggestions to add, or want to send us messages, send them into our tumblrs!  
> [@an-anxious-gay-mess](https://an-anxious-gay-mess.tumblr.com)  
> [@cyrushack](https://cyrushack.tumblr.com)  
> [@he-lives-on-mirkwood](https://he-lives-on-mirkwood.tumblr.com)  
> [@jonahbeckfan4life](https://jonahbeckfan4life.tumblr.com)  
> To reiterate, we will be updating this story (hopefully!) every single Friday, with mini bonus chapters on the occasional Tuesday.


	7. You Belong With Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonah and Cyrus decide its finally time to officially go public with their relationship, and Buffy tries to work on a school project with a little help from a couple of disasters.

“Do you know someone with the username 27Catz?” Jonah asked, looking up from his phone. Cyrus frowned, almost stumbling from where he stood, on his tiptoes on top of his bed, trying to put up a _5 Seconds of Summer_ poster.

“I… what?” he replied, pinning up the last corner. “The person that comments on all of my videos?”

“How’d they find my Instagram?” Jonah frowned.

“I don’t know,” Cyrus shrugged. “Through tagged pictures on mine or Andi’s accounts?”

“Oh,” he sighed, looking up at his boyfriend. “That keeps happening, lately.”

“Oh,” Cyrus repeated, hopping off his bed to sit next to Jonah.

“If I accept the follow then everyone will know we’re a thing and—” he stopped himself, taking a slow breath. Jonah was a very proud boyfriend. A good half of his Instagram posts were of him and Cyrus, but Jonah wasn’t really out publicly. It’s not like it was a big deal, but Jonah didn’t really want flaunt his sexuality and his and Cyrus’s relationship to random strangers, not without any warning.

“Hey,” Cyrus rubbed his back. “It’s up to you.”

“Maybe you can make a video about it?” He suggested and Cyrus’s eyes lit up.

“Sure! I mean, only if you want to,” he smiled. “But yes!”

“Alright,” He chuckled and watched as Cyrus got up, pulling his camera bag from their dresser. “Right now?”

“Uh.” Cyrus nodded. “I have class in an hour so I got time to film a video. We can do reshoots and editing later.” Jonah smiled at his boyfriend. Guess they were going to make a coming out video in the next hour.

* * *

The door to Buffy and Andi’s room opened and Gus and Marty practically ran inside, slamming the door behind them.

"Oh great! You’re here—and you brought brownies," Buffy exclaimed, turning from the box she was unpacking and reaching over to grab a sweet for the container they were carrying. "I'm starving."

"You don't want these brownies." Gus stopped her hand as he spoke.

"And why _wouldn't_ I want the brownies," Buffy questioned, throwing Marty a look. He matched her glare with a look of his own.

"Trust us," Marty said.

"Oh, _oh_ ," Buffy said, eyes widening before she frowned again, "then _why_ did you buy them again?” Neither of the two boys looked her in the eye.

"You should have seen the guy selling them, I couldn't say no to him," Gus finally spoke up after a charged pause.

"You have a boyfriend! _Remember_?" This time it was Marty's turn to speak.

"I was the one who gave him the money," he said, shrugging sheepishly. “Dude was hot.”

Buffy stared at them in obvious judgement.

"Sometimes you guys make no sense to me," she said before turning back to her box to continue unpacking. “You say you’re gonna help me unpack and work on that class project and then you just show up with those _things_ that no one will even—”

"Don't worry, we found someone who—" The door flew open before Gus could finish speaking. Walker. _Of course._

"Hurry before Iris finds out I'm here,” he said, stuffing one hand in his pocket and making a ‘hurry up’ motion with the other.

“Is this seriously happening? Or did the stress of classes finally get to me and I’m passed out in a fever induced haze hallucinating right now?” Buffy asked, looking between the three in front of her unbelievingly.

“Dude, I’m the only one around here having hallucinations. But seriously, can you please give me the stuff? Iris is always on my back about this.”

“Here,” Marty said, shoving the plate of brownies in his hands. “Why exactly does Iris care anyways?”

“She’s always talking about the negative effects and stuff. I keep trying to tell her that not everyone gets the side-effects and that I don’t feel anything, but you know how she is,” Walker answered, grabbing one of the brownies. “She knows I do it and she isn’t going to stop me, but she’s always preaching about how I need to be safe and stop the second I get a sore throat.”

“Well as long as Iris isn’t going to track us down for giving you these. Have at it, man.” Marty said.

“Okay, now that illegal activity has gone down in my presence, officially meaning I could possibly have to appear in court in the near future, can we get back to my thing?” Buffy said, after a few minutes of silence, with Walker eating and sketching something and the other two boys simply just making small talk and sitting on Buffy’s bed.

“What’s your thing?” Gus asked.

“Okay, so you guys know I went back to Shadyside, obviously,” Buffy started. “And while I was there, I decided to go through some of my old stuff. Like, pictures and clothes.”

“Okay…?” Marty prompted. “And?”

“Well, guess what I found!” Buffy replied with an impatient smirk.

“I don’t know, a jacket you grew out of in fifth grade? An embarrassing picture of one of us you’ll inevitably use as blackmail material?” Gus tried.

“No—well, I mean, yes, but we’ll talk about the picture of Cyrus in a kiddie pool later,” Buffy said. “I found shoelaces!”

“Shoelaces?” Marty asked, quirking his brow. “No offense Buffy, but I don’t exactly share your excitement.”

“Not just any shoelaces, Marty, _your_ shoelaces.” Buffy explained, pulling them out of her bag with the note still attached.

“Holy shit, Buffy, you kept those?” Marty exclaimed, taking them from her and reading the note.

“Yup! They were buried under a bunch of junk in my closet, which is why it took me so long to find them I guess.”

“Wait, hold on a second, what shoelaces? What are you guys talking about?” Gus asked, taking the note out of Marty’s hand. “Virtual boyfriend? What is this?”

“Oh, don’t worry about that, it’s just a stupid joke Buffy and I had,” Marty reassured his boyfriend.

“Why didn’t you tell me about it then?”

“I don’t know, just never came up in conversation I guess. We never actually dated.”

“Only because I brutally turned you down when you asked me out,” Buffy interjected, frowning at Marty.

“You asked her out?” Gus said incredulously.

“Well yeah, in like eighth grade. It’s really not that big of a deal, I got over her a long time ago.”

“It’s not that I think you still like her,” Gus started with a sigh. “It’s just that you never told me. I get that we don’t have to tell each other every little thing but the fact that you once asked out one of our friends is kinda a big deal.”

“You liked Jonah!” Marty said in his defense, holding up his hands.

“Yeah, but I told you about that. Besides, everyone liked Jonah!”

“Gus, honestly, it’s not a huge deal. I may have liked Buffy at one point, but that was a long time ago. I only like you. The ‘virtual boyfriend’ thing was a reference to an arcade game we played together.”

“I don’t know, Marty, maybe I’m being too harsh, but I still think you should have told me at some point,” Gus said, before standing up. “I’m going to go to the library, I have some studying to do.”

“Gus! Come on you said you’d help me,” Buffy said, motioning to large half finished poster board on the floor. “This project is due in like two days.”

“Sorry, Buffy,” Gus apologized, reaching the door. “I’m sure you’ll be fine though, your virtual boyfriend is here to help.” With that, he left the dorm entirely.

“I’m aromantic!” Buffy yelled after him right before the door closed. An awkward silence fell upon the group as they all stared at the shut door.

“Dude these brownies are really good.” Walker said eventually.

* * *

“Remind us why you’re in our room again?” Amber asked, eyeing Andi who was currently laying on their floor, pretending to work on a project while watching Netflix.

“Amber, I already told you,” Andi said with a sigh. “My dorm is currently being taken over. Buffy’s working on a project.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you couldn’t just stay there, though,” Iris reasoned.

“Well, apparently Buffy waited until last minute, so she somehow roped Marty and Gus into helping her. And you know how those two are.”

“Stay as long as you need,” Iris reassured them.

The three continued to work in silence for a few minutes before they were interrupted by a knock at the door

“Coming, coming hold on a sec!” Amber called, tripping as she climbed out of her bed. “Buffy? What are you doing here?”

“Gus and Marty went all disaster gay on my ass, and Jonah and Cyrus are being a sickeningly sweet internet couple busy filming, so I’m out of people to help me. Please?” Buffy asked, holding up her poster board.

“I mean, I’m not doing anything better. Come on in,” Amber said, stepping back to allow Buffy in, Walker trailing a few steps behind her.

“Don’t you normally have stuff like this done way ahead of time?” Iris asked as she glued another graph onto the board.

“Yeah, it _was_ done. Then someone spilled grape juice all over it.”

“Who would do that?” Andi demanded.

“TJ.”

Amber sighed. “Of fucking course.”

* * *

“Gus! Would you just stop moving and listen to me for a second!” Marty called, jogging to catch up with him. Despite Gus having shorter legs and Marty being a track star, Gus had gotten a head start while Marty had debated rushing after him or not. The younger boy didn’t seem keen on stopping for a chat though and continued on as though he hadn’t heard him.

“Gus, seriously. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but I really didn’t think you would care. We both talk about having liked other people or thinking other guys are hot all the time—this _cannot_ be the problem. Besides, you know I only like you,” Marty said, catching up enough to grab Gus’s wrist, making him finally stop walking.

“What, Marty?” Gus turned, staring at him. Marty blinked, staring at his boyfriend’s unreadable expression.

“Gus, I… are you okay?” he asked, frowning. “We never fight about this stuff.”

“I’m fine, Marty,” Gus frowned.

“Really? Because you don’t seem that fine to me,” Marty said, sighing as he let go of his hold on Gus’ wrist. “Look, I get it if you don’t want to talk to me about it, that’s fine, but at least don’t lie and say that's nothing's wrong when you’re obviously upset about something.”

There was a long moment of silence while the two just looked at each other. The were both aware of the fact that the sun was setting and that they were the only people on the path.

“I’m sorry,” Gus said eventually. “You’re right. I shouldn't have acted like that, it's just…” he trailed off, trying to think of how to say it.

“It’s just what?” Marty asked patiently.

“It's just that I'm freaking out over how I did on my exams right now, because I'm really worried I failed at least one of them. And that doesn’t really have anything to do with you so it’s no big deal.” Gus rambled, and Marty waited silently for him to continue. “And, it’s just. I know we joke about thinking other people are hot all the time but you’ve been doing it a lot more often lately. I mean we literally bought suspicious brownies off of a guy today because you thought the guy was hot. I mean yeah, he was kinda hot, but not like ‘follow into sketchy alley’ hot. And I get that I’m being stupid and irrational and everything but it just feels like you’re trying to hint to me that you’re finally tired of me and you’re realizing how much happier you’d be if you weren’t tied down in a relationship with me. And Buffy was the last straw I guess, because you gave her that gift and everything and I guess I thought, what if you liked someone like Buffy more than you liked me?” Marty had to take a minute to blink at him in shock.

“Gus, I—I didn’t know.” He shook his head. “I mean, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you felt like that—that I was making you feel like that. I swear, I’m not tired of you. I’m not gonna choose anyone else over you.”

“Even the hot sketchy brownie guy?” Gus asked, a small reluctant smile playing on his lips.

“Especially the hot sketchy brownie guy,” Marty confirmed. “Hell, I’d follow an even sketchier, less hot brownie guy down an alley if you asked me to.” Gus laughed, finally, and Marty counted that as a win.

“Back to the dorms?” he asked. “I feel bad for running out on Buffy.”

“Sure,” Marty agreed, taking Gus’s hand and heading back to the building.

“You know,” Gus mused, after a minute. “There’s a lot I would do for you. More than follow a sketchy guy into an alley. I think I’d do almost anything for you.” He looked up at Marty.

“Is that scary? Or weird?” Gus asked. Marty squeezed his hand.

“Of course it’s scary, but it’s not weird. I’d do the same.”

* * *

Gus and Marty set of to Buffy’s dorm to apologize, then, founding it empty, figured she must have gone to Amber and Iris’ room to get their help after they left. They did still want to apologize to her, though, since they knew how much Buffy was probably stressed over the state of the project, so they decided another little detour on the way back to their dorm wasn’t too bad.

Knocking, and finding the door to the girl's dorm unlocked, they pushed it forward to find an extremely worrying scene.

“I can’t believe you Walker! Seriously? Now you’re eating it?” Iris was standing over Walker, who still seemed pretty zoned out on a bean bag chair in the corner of the dorm.

“Iris I respect that you’re furious right now but please this counts for like ten percent of my grade.” Buffy pleaded, looking exhausted over her poster board that they casually noted hasn’t made much progress since they left.

“Andi, please tell me you’re getting all of this,” Amber said to them. They were holding their phone camera, pointed at the three who were arguing.

“Oh, definitely,” Andi replied through their laughter. “Cyrus and Jonah are gonna be so mad they missed this.” They were sitting shoulder to shoulder on Amber’s bed, where they had probably been neglecting to help Buffy in favor of talking and giggling.

“Do you wanna apologize in the morning?” Gus asked quietly. They hadn’t been noticed yet but he didn’t want Buffy to hear them and rope them into that disaster.

“That’s probably for the best,” Marty replied before the two left, back to their room, where they could properly make up after their little argument.

“C’mon, Andi,” Iris huffed, her cheeks red. “There’s no way you’re okay with your boyfriend injuring his health like this!”

“He’s fine, Iris,” Andi chuckled. “He’s been doing it since he was sixteen and he hasn’t died yet.”

“If that’s your standard for if something is okay, then I’m deeply concerned over how we’re going to survive these next four year,” Iris sighed with exasperation.

“Babe, relax,” Amber shifted, sitting up. “You’re starting to look like Tinkerbell.” Walker chuckled, followed by a laugh from Andi.

“Guys, please,” Buffy pleaded, her voice actually sounding tired for once. “It’s so late and this project is due so soon, I’m begging you to sit down and glue construction paper onto cardboard for me.”

“Okay, okay,” Iris groaned, sitting down next to Buffy and picking up a glue stick. Eventually, Amber and Andi got down next to her as well, and even Walker did some doodles on the blank construction paper for them to decorate the presentation with.

* * *

“It’s finished,” Cyrus said as soon as Jonah got inside their dorm after a long day of classes and band rehearsal.

“What’s finished?” he asked tiredly, putting his guitar case down next to the door and flopped down on Cyrus’s bed, basically their bed, next to him.

“The video, the one we filmed this morning,” Cyrus mumbled, pecking Jonah’s lips. “I finished editing it.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Jonah nodding, smiling. “So you’re gonna upload it?”

“Yep,” Cyrus nodded enthusiastically. “I was waiting for you.”

“Ah, thank you.” Jonah shifted closer to his boyfriend and watched as he opened up Youtube, clicking the upload option.

“Are you sure you’re ready?” he asked. “It’s all on you. You good?”

“Undoubtedly.” Jonah answered, nodding. Cyrus nodded back and put the video in, adding all the information. The entire process took a bit, but Cyrus clicked upload once he was finished. It was done. The video that was going to broadcast Jonah and Cyrus’s relationship to the internet was uploading.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [the spotify playlist actually exists!](https://open.spotify.com/user/wgg1p2hv770g1w6cgwtr0b0s7/playlist/1mUpffqmUStxniwpEG3RRV)  
>  If you have any song suggestions to add, or want to send us messages, send them into our tumblrs!  
> [@an-anxious-gay-mess](https://an-anxious-gay-mess.tumblr.com)  
> [@cyrushack](https://cyrushack.tumblr.com)  
> [@he-lives-on-mirkwood](https://he-lives-on-mirkwood.tumblr.com)  
> [@jonahbeckfan4life](https://jonahbeckfan4life.tumblr.com)  
> To reiterate, we will be updating this story (hopefully!) every single Friday, with mini bonus chapters on the occasional Tuesday.


	8. Coming Out! (Video)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Read More:_  
>  Get #Jyrus trending on tumblr  
> Jonah's tumblr is @JB-but-thankfully-not-beiber  
> Instagram is @becktothefuture  
> Thanks for all the support!  
> ~Cyrus

“Beep Boop, Hello human, My name is Cy-gay!” Cyrus said doing his signature intro—not sitting on his own bed like normal. “I’m sure you guys saw this title and are pretty confused.”

“Wait, why, what you calling this video?” Jonah asked.

“‘Coming Out,’ now hush I’m trying to dramatically set this up,” Cyrus replied.  “Like I was saying, I’m pretty sure everyone who watches me already knows I’m gay. So how could I come out? It’s not really something I go out of my way to hide, considering I have a rainbow flag in my background. But I’m not in my usual place today. Clearly.”

“Today we’re on my bed!” Jonah chimed in. “As you can see by my bi flag replacing Cyrus’ rainbow.”

“Yup! So technically this is a coming out video. It’s just Jonah’s coming out and not mine.” Cyrus announced.

“Yay,” Jonah said dryly.

“I’ll hopefully remember the edit in some fireworks or something here,” Cyrus said as fireworks belatedly appeared on screen.

“Well that’s not really all we were going to say in this video, though I’m sure you guessed what else we’re talking about. That’s right, I read the comments, and Jyrus is a great ship name. Get it trending. Right now.”

“That's a really weird way of saying we're dating, Cyrus,” Jonah laughed.

Cyrus huffed. “Can you never allow me to use dramatic exposition?” he complained.

“Not when it means it takes twenty minutes to get to the point of the video,” Jonah replied. “Which is…” he trailed off, setting Cyrus up.

“Right! So we didn't want to make a video that was exclusively us talking about our relationship, though we did want to announce that so we wouldn't have to hide it anymore.”

“Yeah, if any of you guys have tried to follow me on Instagram and were unable to, it's because I wasn’t quite ready to show of posts of Cyrus and I being together. I'm unprivating once this goes up, though, so feel free to follow me now.” Jonah said.

“Self promo aside,” Cyrus said, shoving Jonah's shoulder slightly. “We wanted to talk about all sorts of stuff about being gay and bisexual. It's obviously something that’s super important to both of us.”

“Yeah! I’m going to go first, because my story is a lot shorter than Cyrus’.” Jonah announced.

“Because you're a lot shorter than me?” Cyrus asked innocently.

“Shut up.” Jonah said before quickly moving on. “So I realized I was bi during my freshman year of high school when I got a huge crush on Cyrus here,” Jonah started, bumping shoulders with Cyrus. “Before that I had only dated two people and—wait, crap, Cyrus, I should probably ask them if they're okay with me saying this.”

“Text them then,” Cyrus said, handing Jonah his phone. An image of a loop of Jonah playing the guitar appeared for a few seconds on screen.

“Okay, we're back!” Cyrus announced. “Sorry about that guys.”

“So,” Jonah started. “You've probably seen Andi and Amber in a few  of Cyrus’ vlogs. Amber was actually my first girlfriend! It didn't work out very well, because Amber wasn’t really in the best place for a relationship at the time and I was too young to know that so I just went along with it. And she was gay, but we didn’t know that until later. Anyway.

“Andi was my second “girlfriend.” They didn't come out as nonbinary until after we broke up, but by that time I was already using the label bi for myself, so it was kinda confusing. Technically I had had one girlfriend, one partner, and one crush on a boy, which for a while made me think I couldn't use the label bi anymore.

“Identities can be _really_ confusing to figure out, especially if you're going through it in high school, when everything is confusing. Up until my senior year when I started dating Cyrus I was “straight-passing” I guess you could say—I hate the term, but there’s not really a better way to say it—since Andi wasn't really out to anyone but us. I knew I definitely wasn't straight, though. I thought I could be pan, but that didn't really feel right for me. I eventually realized I could still use the label bi for myself, even if I’ve had partners all over the gender spectrum. The labels bi and pan have a lot of overlap with each other, and different people have different definitions for their own label, and I just feel like bi fits me best.

It kinda sucked, to have had to backtrack when I had already picked a label for myself, but I'm kinda thankful for it. Before I had to go through the whole ‘am I actually pan’ thing I wasn’t 100 percent sure on if I was actually bisexual or not. There was still that doubt in my mind that was telling me I was actually straight and I was just faking it. Having to spend so much time thinking over my identity helped me realize that I actually _am_ bisexual though, which is a nice benefit.”

“Yay! After all of that we're gifted with the sight of this beautiful bisexual right here,” Cyrus said after having waited patiently through it all of Jonah's story.

“Just get on with your story, dork,” Jonah said despite the smile on their face. It was really nice to not feel like the had to be careful about displays of affection while they were recording.

“Okay, okay. Well I guess I should preface this story by saying I'm Jewish. I come from a Jewish family and we were all very serious practices. We went to a synagogue every Sunday and my Bar Mitzvah and the following party was a _huge_ deal. And I'm not sure how much you guys know about the Jewish faith, but the Torah does indeed have the ‘homosexuality is an abomination’ scripture that the Bible does.

We both also grew up in a tiny rural town in Utah, a southern state, where everybody knew everybody and people _talked_. So, the opinions I heard about gay people growing up weren't very… positive. Realizing I liked Jonah, or even boys in general, seemed like a death sentence to me when I was in seventh grade and I tried to deny if for a while.

“I eventually did work my way through admitting my crush, though it still seemed like a rather large deal. It took me a long time to appreciate the fact that God _is_ love and to say that He hates a specific type of love that exists naturally within the people He creates is probably insanely untrue. I'm bringing this up mainly because I want anyone that's watching me that's going through this right now too, God, whether it's a Jewish God a Christian God, or Allah, does not hate you. And I know it's something that's really hard to convince yourself off, but it's important to remember while you try to work through it with yourself.”

Jonah's hand reached out to squeeze Cyrus’ hand out of view of the camera. He wasn't really religious himself, he hadn't grown up with it and never really saw the appeal once he was old enough to decide for himself, but he knew how important it was to his boyfriend.

Cyrus coughed a little. “So, uh, yeah. There was a lot of stuff we were dealing with, both of us—all of us. So it took us until my junior year—Jonah’s senior—until we realized we, you know.”

“We could have been like this all along,” Jonah said, lifting their linked hands for a minute. “It kinda sucked, as great as it was, since we knew I would be leaving the next year, but we’d already been friends for so long. We knew the distance wouldn’t mess it up.”

“Yeah.” The look Cyrus gave Jonah then was maybe just a tad too long, but that was what the video was for. “It wasn’t too bad. He visited probably… once a month?”

“As often as I could,” Jonah confirmed. “Hmm. We’ve covered everything except, ironically, what the title of the video says.”

Cyrus slapped his forehead. “Oh! Of course. So. How did we come out to people?” He glanced at Jonah. “I can go first.”

“Sure.”

“So, let’s see.” Cyrus tapped his lip. “The very first person I came out to was my friend Buffy. I realized I liked Jonah, way more than I liked my girlfriend at the time—yeah, I had a girlfriend, the gay panic was real. Anyway, I couldn’t talk to Andi, because they had a huge crush on him, but I’d known Buffy for forever so she was a safe choice. So I told her, and then I told Andi at my bar mitzvah a few months later. I was pretty young, obviously, around thirteen. But there’s no age you have to be to come out, so, life hack right there! Anyway, Andi started dating Jonah and I tried to convince myself that it was a fluke, that I didn’t actually still like him. I told myself I was over him. Clearly, I was a huge liar.”

“Clearly.” Jonah smirked and Cyrus laughed, pushing him.

“Anyway,” Cyrus continued, smiling. “I ended up coming out to Amber next, we built up this weird therapy friendship, but that's for another time. Eventually, this did lead to me coming out to the rest of my friends, and then my family.” He took a breath and continued talking.

“See, I have four parents, so I had to come out _at least_ two times. It was hard, and as I said, my family is very religious, but it was like a weight lifted off my shoulder, you know? Like, I could finally tell them.” Jonah smiled at Cyrus’ words.

“When I came out,” Jonah continued. “The first person I told was Andi, funnily enough. I had told them that I thought I liked girls and boys. Then, I did come out to my friends, but I didn’t want anyone to know that I figured this out because of my feelings on Cyrus. But I did end up telling Cyrus, obviously.

“As far as family goes, I’ve never had the best relationship with them. When I did come out to them, I waited until freshman year of college. It wasn’t the best experience and I’m not really on speaking terms with any of them, but you know what? It was worth it. I now have the best, most supportive friends and the most amazing boyfriend in the world. I wouldn’t trade any of that to go back to my awful parents.” He was shaking slightly but he had a huge smile on his face, and Cyrus was holding him a bit closer than he was before.

“So, to recap, in short,” Cyrus smiled, looking at the camera. “Jonah and I are… _dating_ , and this is our coming out video.” He grinned. “So, links to Jonah’s social media stuff will be in the description, and we’ll see you next time!”

* * *

 

Comments:

  


Cy-gay (pinned comment):

Thank you so much for all of the supportive comments <3

    Jb (not justin bieber):

    Yeah, thanks guys!

 

Garrett Watts:

This was great and highlighted some important topics! Hmu if you’ll be at vidcon :)

    Cy-gay:

    Oh my god! Thank you so much!!

 

Bex Mack:

I’m so proud of you guys!!

    Jb (not justin bieber):

    Thank you Bex!

 

27Cats:

OMG I KNEW #JYRUS WAS REAL

 

Phantomofthe21pilotsdisco:

I loved how you talked about religion and coming out. You guys are so inspiring and cool and I know this took a lot of courage! :)

 

bob duncan:

This video is so well-thought out and you two both seem very genuine and real

 

Dearelphabahamilton:

I was crying while watching this. It’s so good!

 

Cy-pporter:

OMG I LOVED THIS VIDEO !

 

MerlinRules2001:

You guys are so brave.

 

RainbowGirl:

Vfgehdjwdhgvubhinjcdvuihu i’m crying

 

Shook To The Core:

You guys are so cute !

 

Shyland&PhanLuver:

I love how you’re able to sit down and talk about this stuff with your viewers. It shows how dedicated you are!

 

Cyrushack:

Love it! ~

 

he-lives-on-mirkwood:

You guys seem down to earth and cool. Nice video!

 

gartyfromtheparty:

You two are so soft

 

an-anxious-gay-mess:

It was really nice to watch a video without all the gimmicks and ads and be able to watch a good youtuber who can just be themself

 

Jyrus is real:

Cyrus looked so soft in that shirt

 

_Load More_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [the spotify playlist actually exists!](https://open.spotify.com/user/wgg1p2hv770g1w6cgwtr0b0s7/playlist/1mUpffqmUStxniwpEG3RRV)  
>  If you have any song suggestions to add, or want to send us messages, send them into our tumblrs!  
> [@an-anxious-gay-mess](https://an-anxious-gay-mess.tumblr.com)  
> [@cyrushack](https://cyrushack.tumblr.com)  
> [@he-lives-on-mirkwood](https://he-lives-on-mirkwood.tumblr.com)  
> [@jonahbeckfan4life](https://jonahbeckfan4life.tumblr.com)  
> To reiterate, we will be updating this story (hopefully!) every single Friday, with mini bonus chapters on the occasional Tuesday.


	9. I'm Not Famous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cyrus and Jonah observe the fallout from posting their coming out video while Buffy goes into crisis mode over being ghosted.  
> Oh, did we say fallout? We meant positive feedback.

“What do they say?” Cyrus mumbled, leaning into Jonah as he watched Andi search through their computer, staring at the screen. They were currently all sitting in Jonah and Cyrus’s room, waiting for Andi read the comments of Jonah and Cyrus’s ‘Coming Out’ video. It was a stress-induced experience for Cyrus and Jonah, so the others came for moral support.

“Oh my God.” Andi gaped at their screen, staring at the top comment.

“What? What is it? Is it bad?” Cyrus shuffled to look at the screen, stretching his neck to try and see what Andi was freaking out about. Jonah was calmer than Cyrus, but a hint of anxiety of what people would think of them stayed.

“Garrett Watts commented on your Youtube video, Cyrus!” Andi grinned and Cyrus stared at her, wide-eyed.

“ _The_ Garrett Watts? As in the YouTuber, Garrett Watts? As in the one with blond hair and glasses—”

“Yes, Cyrus,” Andi laughed, shaking their head. Everyone was staring at the scene play out, amused at Cyrus’s overdone reaction to something as simple as a Youtube comment.  

“Lemme see!” Cyrus basically toppled onto Andi’s lap as he got closer to the laptop screen.

“What did he say?” Jonah asked, an amused smile on his face.

“This was a great and highlighted some important topics. Hit me up if you’ll be at Vidcon,” Cyrus read, in what was sounded like an imitation of his voice. “And he added a smiley face.”

“Wait, you’re going to Vidcon? Does that mean we’re all going to Vidcon?” Marty asked and Buffy rolled her eyes at him.

“Shut up, Marty, no one’s going to Vidcon,” she muttered, causing laughter to come from everyone in the group but Gus.

“Wait, Cyrus,” Gus looked up from his phone. “Have you checked Tumblr recently?”

“No, I—wait, why?” Cyrus, and everyone else, turned to the redhead.

“Well, you’re trending,” he said, holding up his phone.

“I’m _what_?” Cyrus was completely distracted from the comments as he ripped the phone from Gus’s grasp.

“It’s the last one, but you’re still on there,” Gus shrugged.

“Holy shit!” Cyrus jumped up, showing the phone to Jonah.

“Oh my god!” Jonah laughed, looking at the tiny screen.

“This doesn’t mean you guys are the next Phan, right?” Walker sighed, looking at them. “I don’t think the world needs another Phandom.”

“Don’t slander Dan and Phil’s good name,” Iris frowned, looking at Walker.

“Honestly, Iris, the fact that you’re still in the Phandom at this day and age is a little repulsive,” Walker shook his head in mock disgust.

“Shut up, King.” She laughed, hitting him with one of Jonah’s pillows.

“Hey I sleep on those,” Jonah sighed. “Beat him with your fists like real a woman.”

“Do NOT get blood on our sheets.” Cyrus interjected.

“No one,” Walker gasped, hitting Iris with the other pillow on the bed. “Is getting blood on your guys's bed.”

“But if you're going to fight on any of the beds do it on the other one, no one uses it anyway—” A beeping from Jonah’s phone interrupted what he was saying. “Shit, I have to go to work.”

“You got a job?” Marty asked, leaning against Gus from Cyrus’s bed.

“He coaches an elementary school frisbee team on Thursdays,” Cyrus answered for Jonah as he put his shoes and jacket on. Then Cyrus’s face morphed into that of panic.

“Wait,” Cyrus shot up. “Jonah, what time is it?”

“Ten, why?” Jonah asked, picking up a bag of what was, probably, frisbees.

“Fuck.” Cyrus threw his own coat on and stared at everyone frantically. “I’m sorry but you all have to leave, now, I have a class.” Everyone groaned and started gathering their things, getting up from where they were.

“You two are the biggest disaster gays,” Amber mumbled on her way out.

“Excuse you, I am a disaster bi,” Jonah grinned as he ushered them out the door.

“Same,” Walker and Marty said at the same time as Cyrus locked the door to their dorm and everyone dissipated, Cyrus and Jonah rushing to their respective duties that they had forgotten about.

“Don’t lie,” Andi told Walker. “You’re not quite a disaster yet. Still functional.”

“I don’t think anyone who willingly spends time with this group could be deemed anything but a disaster,” Walker argued.

* * *

“Buffy, come on, you have to wake up.”

“Just five more minutes.”

“Buffy I swear if you don’t wake up in the next three seconds I will dump my water bottle on your head.”

“Ugh fine, I’m up, I’m up.” Buffy groaned half heartedly waving Andi off.

“Thank you,” Andi sighed with relief. Normally, Buffy managed to wake herself up in the morning just fine, but when she didn’t…

“Come on Buffy, you actually have to get ready. We have class in 20 minutes and you’re still staring at your phone in your pajamas,” Andi said in exasperation. “At least get dressed before you get sucked into another twitter thread.”

“Fine,” Buffy said, tossing her phone down before searching for clean clothes. Something was definitely bothering her.

“Did you not get any sleep last night?” Andi asked sympathetically. “No offense, but you seen a little grouchy.”

“It’s not that,” Buffy sighed. “It’s just that Natalie hasn’t texted me yet. She’s normally at least said good morning or something at this point, since she’s 2 hours ahead of us and everything.”

“Oh,” Andi said, then realizing that wasn’t the most eloquent answer continued, “Buffy, I’m sorry, that sucks. She’s probably in class right now, but maybe you can call her later?”

“Yeah,” Buffy sighed “I just hate not hearing from her.”

“Maybe she forgot to charge her phone last night so she couldn’t text you before class?” Andi offered.

“Maybe,” Buffy agreed. “Come on, we’re gonna be late.”

* * *

“Cyrus, I see you refreshing comments over there. Come on, I know you still have two pages left to write,” Jonah said, shooting Cyrus a look from across the room. He was sitting on his bed, trying to work, but his boyfriend was being irresponsible and making it impossible to focus.

“I know, I just want to see what everyone is saying! I didn’t think our video would get so popular,” Cyrus said, still looking at his phone.

“Yeah, same. It’s kinda weird when you think about,” Jonah mused.

“What do you mean?” Cyrus asked, setting down his phone and turning towards Jonah.

“Well, no offense or anything, but you weren’t exactly that popular before we posted it. I honestly thought we were just going to clear it up for the five people who watched you. Now suddenly a bunch of strangers know we’re dating, plus a bunch of other personal stuff about us.”

“I hadn’t really thought of that,” Cyrus admitted. “Do you regret making the video?”

“Not for a second,” Jonah reassured him. “I just think it might take some getting used to.”

“Yeah. Wow I guess you could say we’re famous now?” Cyrus said with a dorky smile. “Jyrus is the power couple tumblr needs.”

“As long as we don’t actually become the next phan that’s fine,” Jonah grinned, causing them both the laugh.

“I really didn’t think about how making that video could change things,” Cyrus said after they finished laughing.

“Do _you_ regret making it?” Jonah asked.

“No, I don’t think so. I’m just worried we’re going to have to get used to people knowing about us. Like, what if people recognize us when we’re getting groceries or something?”

“Well, I don’t think we’re quite _that_ popular yet. But if they do, then it's not a big deal. We just take a selfie with them and then continue buying ramen noodles.”

“Yeah, you’re right. This is so cool.”

“It is. Don’t think I’m not going to make you actually write those two pages though,” Jonah said, turning back to his own laptop and ignoring Cyrus groans. YouTube celebrity or not, they did still have homework.

* * *

Andi couldn’t help but notice how often Buffy was checking her phone. It was hard not to, really. Barely five seconds would go by without them looking over to see Buffy glancing at her phone and refreshing her messages. It, of course, only got worse after lunch, when Buffy had tried to call Natalie only for it to go straight to voicemail three consecutive times. Needless to say, she had started freaking out a bit after that.

“Buffy! Calm down, I’m sure Natalie is alright,” Cyrus reassured her. The whole crew was crowded into Amber and Iris’ dorm, where they had been trying to talk Buffy down from her slight panic for the past twenty minutes.

“You don’t know that for sure! I mean, why else has she not answered any of her texts or calls today?” Buffy demanded, only pausing from her pacing of the tiny dorm for a second to to give Cyrus a look telling him she wasn’t going to listen to his ‘everything is fine’ theory.

“Maybe, oh I don’t know, her phone’s dead?” Amber offered sarcastically.

“And she hasn’t charged it all day?” Buffy said incredulously.

“Maybe her charger broke? Or her phone?” Gus said hesitantly, not wanting Buffy to shift her rage onto him.

“How could she have broken her phone? She’s always so careful with it.”

“I bet Tj broke it,” Andi offered.

“Fuckin’ Tj,” Buffy muttered. “Okay, that’s besides the point,” she continued. “If it was her charger then she could’ve borrowed her roomates. And if her phone broke then she could’ve lost my number for good! No one ever remembers anyones numbers now that we can just use contacts.”

“Buffy, it’s okay, even if her phone did break she could always just message you on instagram or something once she gets a new one or from her laptop. She was probably just busy today anyway,” Cyrus said.

“But—no, you guys are right, she probably just turned off her phone because she had a lecture today and forgot to turn it back on and I’m freaking out over nothing,” Buffy said, sighing and flopping down on Iris’ bed.

“It’s fine, Buffy,” Iris reassured, patting her shoulder.

“Yeah, you have every right to be stressed out,” Walker continued.

“Long distance relationships sucks,” Buffy sighed.

“But you guys aren't dating?” Amber asked, confused, before being met with five identical glares. “What? They aren’t!”

“Amber, just because they aren’t dating romantically doesn’t mean they don’t have a relationship,” Andi explained with a sigh. They loved Amber, they really did, but she had an unfortunate habit of not really being the most conscious of how she sounded when she said certain things. It had gotten better from her mean girl phase, but it was still an issue she was working on.

“No, she’s right. I mean, we’re not even dating, why should I care this much?” Buffy asked rhetorically, sounding equal parts upset and angry.

“Um, Buffy—”

“Sorry, Marty,” Buffy said cutting Cyrus off as she grabbed her bag and headed for the door. “I’m not really feeling up to D&D tonight.”

“Does no one here actually give a shit about my expertly crafted campaign?”

“Marty, shut up,” Iris said right as the door slammed.

* * *

Buffy knew not everyone really fully understood what a queerplatonic relationship was. She knew it was weird. A relationship without sex or explicit romance? Isn’t that basically just a friendship? People didn’t get it, but that was fine, because she didn’t really need people’s approval of her relationship with Natalie. It was their relationship anyways, it wasn’t anyone else’s business.

It still hurt for her friend to say that, though.

She knew Amber didn’t mean anything by it. In all honestly, she was right, they technically weren’t dating. But they were in a long distance relationship, and that sucked, whether the relationship was platonic or not. And to have Amber basically say that she was overreacting at her qpp not messaging her back after an entire day was really annoying.

She wasn’t even aware of where she had been walking to until she had already slid her key into the lock of her dorm room—and promptly threw herself onto her bed with a groan.

She stared at her dark phone for what felt like forever until she heard someone else coming into the room.

“Hey,” Andi said, settling themself down next to Buffy.

“Hey,” Buffy responded. “Still no word.” Andi nodded.

“It’s going to be okay,” they said with a reassuring smile, which Buffy struggled to return.

“Yeah. Why’d you leave the others?” Buffy asked.

“So I could come see if you were okay.” Andi said as if it was obvious. “I would’ve been here sooner, but I was trying to decide if you went to the basketball court or here.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

“No problem,” Andi replied, smiling. “Amber told me to say she was sorry by the way. You know how she gets sometimes, speaking before she thinks and all that.”

“Yeah, I know she wasn’t trying to be a jerk or anything, I’m just still really worried about Natalie.”

“Don’t worry about it, you have every right to be worried right now. I’m sure she’s fine, but I’m also sure it must be torture waiting to here from her,” they reassured.

“Thanks,” Buffy smiled. Andi had always been really good at cheering her up. They were a good friend.

“Like I said, no problem. Wanna watch _The Princess Diaries_? It’ll be a good distraction.”

“Do you even have to ask?”

 

The movies were just as good as Buffy remembered them. Funny, sweet, and definitely a good distraction. Though repeatedly having to poke Andi to stop them from falling asleep was sorta subtracting from the experience. Andi always seemed to be tired these days, they kept insisting it was just stress, which everyone could definitely relate to. That was no excuse to fall asleep during _The Princess Diaries,_ though.

Midway through the second movie was when Buffy finally got the text.

“Andi! Natalie just texted. Apparently her phone froze up when it started automatically updating last night, and she ended up oversleeping because she didn’t have an alarm and didn’t have time to fix it. Then she had a bunch of homework all day, and it took her another hour to actually get her phone working again. But she’s okay!”

“Buffy, that’s great! I’m glad everything is okay.”

“Yeah,” Buffy said with a smile. “Me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [the spotify playlist actually exists!](https://open.spotify.com/user/wgg1p2hv770g1w6cgwtr0b0s7/playlist/1mUpffqmUStxniwpEG3RRV)  
>  If you have any song suggestions to add, or want to send us messages, send them into our tumblrs!  
> [@an-anxious-gay-mess](https://an-anxious-gay-mess.tumblr.com)  
> [@cyrushack](https://cyrushack.tumblr.com)  
> [@he-lives-on-mirkwood](https://he-lives-on-mirkwood.tumblr.com)  
> [@jonahbeckfan4life](https://jonahbeckfan4life.tumblr.com)  
> To reiterate, we will be updating this story (hopefully!) every single Friday, with mini bonus chapters on the occasional Tuesday.


	10. The Kids Aren't Alright

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Andi and Walker have a huge fight, the gang joins forces to help make it right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We hope you enjoy this chapter, and we’re sorry in advice. It’s gonna wreck you.

It was nearly 2 pm when Andi finally pulled themself out of bed. It was Saturday, so it wasn’t exactly a huge deal, but they had already decided they were going to run back to Shadyside and help Bex and Olivia with some of their wedding planning, and now they were definitely getting a bit of a late start. Even more concerning, they were still somehow exhausted. After falling asleep at 11 pm and waking up at 2 pm you’d think they would have abundant energy. Not so much.

Chugging a Red Bull helped, and so did actually getting out of bed and changing into real clothes, but Andi still cast a longing glance over their shoulder at their bed on their way out the dorm. It was going to be a long day, and the migraine they had was evidence.

“Hey guys,” Andi said, peeking their head into Jonah and Cyrus’ dorm, which is apparently where everyone had decided to gather today. They were trying to ignore the pain in their chest, internally blaming it on the Red Bull. “I’m gonna head out soon. Anyone need me to grab anything?” It was rare that any of them really left campus, and even rarer that they went beyond the city. They were fully expecting their friends to hand them an entire grocery list.

“Are you sure it’s a good idea for you to go on that long of a drive today?” Buffy asked, peering at them with concern.

“What do you mean?” Andi replied, fully stepping into the room.

“Andi, you slept until 2pm today,” Walker said slowly.

“Yeah, and?”

“ _And_ you look dead on your feet. You got over twelve hours of sleep and you’re still drinking an energy drink right now.” Walker continued.

“Look,” Andi sighed. “I’m just a little tired, it’s fine. Bex is super stressed over this whole wedding thing, and I really should be there for them.”

“I somehow doubt that Bex is anymore stressed than you right now. You’re squinting, which probably means the light is hurting your head, so I’m pretty sure you have a migraine. Plus, you look like you’re going to fall over any minute now!”

“I can take care of myself, Walker,” Andi said, annoyed.

“I’m sorry, Andi…” He sighed. “I’m trying to look out for you.”

“You’re being controlling,” Andi shot back.

“I get that, and I’m not trying to control you or anything, but—”

“Then act like it maybe,” Andi snapped.

“What the fuck, Andi?” Walker stared at them, mad. “Why are you acting like this? Maybe think before fucking doing something. This isn’t a good idea.”

“I’m leaving now, I’ll see you guys tomorrow.” Andi turned, exiting the room.

As soon as the door slammed shut behind them, Iris let out a whistle.

“Oh boy. You done fucked up.”

* * *

Andi stomped their way out to their car, now thoroughly pissed at their boyfriend. At least now maybe spite could fuel them, they mused as they finished off the rest of their Red Bull. The fact that their head flared up in pain as they struggled to put it into their cup holder didn’t mean anything. The idea that this was going to be a long day sure was holding up so far.

* * *

“Fuck. Okay how am I gonna fix this?” Walker asked, directing the question to the room at large.

“I don’t know man, what do you normally do when you guys fight?” Marty asked.

“We don’t really fight. I’m pretty sure this is the first time either of us has actually angrily left the room after we talked.” Everyone in the dorm winced slightly at the admission.

“Well, okay, this could be a good thing then!” Iris said with false enthusiasm.

“Um, Iris, I’m not sure I follow your logic. How is Walker and Andi fighting a good thing, exactly?” Amber asked.

“Well if they were fighting all the time or even just semi frequently it wouldn’t be. But all healthy relationships involve a fight every now and again. People get tired and frustrated some days, and it’s healthy to let out that aggression sometimes. Though normally you are supposed to stay and talk it out…” Everyone minus Walker just huh-ed at the new knowledge. Iris may have been on the marine biology track, but she’d make a great psychologist.

“Well okay, now that we know that these Marine Biology courses are a waste of time and Iris is going to end up a couple’s therapist, can we discuss how exactly I’m going to fix this?” Walker asked. Everyone was quiet for a moment before looking expectantly at Iris.

“Fine,” Iris sighed in defeat. “God, I have to do everything around here.”

* * *

Andi debated about turning on The Playlist or not. It would probably help wake them up more, and it was much more fun listening to music on a road trip, especially since they knew they made it with their friends. The pounding of their head was telling them it was a bad idea, though. Plus they weren’t sure if they would even hear the music, with how much they were focusing on just staying awake and keeping on the road. It was unusually hard.

* * *

“So, basically, what you’re saying is I need to make a huge elaborate gesture to it make it up to Andi?” Walker asked.

“Well, no, what I’m saying is that you should do something simple and nice for Andi and then talk about why you fought in the first place,” Iris corrected.

“Okay, I’m definitely hearing huge grand gesture here,” Marty said.

“Wait no guys that’s a horrible idea—”

“I’m thinking some sort mural,” Gus interrupted.

“I love the way you think!” Walker said, clapping Gus on the back.

“Why the hell would he make a mural—”

“Would we be able to get the space in enough time though?” Buffy mused.

“No, which is why we should not do this—”

“Only one way to find out!” Walker announced, grabbing his coat and running out the door. Everyone besides Iris excitedly followed him out. Iris stared at the empty dorm for a minute before following.

“They’re gonna need _someone_ responsible with them.” She muttered as she locked the door.

* * *

It felt abnormally hard for Andi to draw in a breath as they struggled to keep their car in the lane. Their breathing was erratic and short and their vision was swimming. Their head felt foggy, enough so that they couldn’t even be concerned at the fact that their hands were loosening on the steering wheel. There was a pounding in their chest in head. They couldn’t quite pinpoint it exactly, but it sounded vaguely of a heartbeat, only it was off. Too busy focused on the sound of their, apparent, heartbeat, they almost missed the screeching noise coming from in front of them. The sound of someone belatedly slamming on their brakes. Then, everything went black.

* * *

“Walker, over here.” Buffy called. Walker followed the sound of her voice, and found her standing in front of a fairly blank bit of wall that was otherwise covered in graffiti.

“Yeah, this should work. Good job Buffy.” He said. “Alright, Amber you've got the spray paint?”

“Guys this is a seriously bad idea. What if we get caught?” Iris’ concerns were ignored in favor of Amber handing Walker a drawstring back stuffed with cans of spray paint.

“Here.”

“Thanks dude. Alright, now what am I going to paint?” He asked staring at the wall. The blank bit wasn't huge, but it was big enough that he could do something cool.

“So you're telling me we came all the way out here and spent 20 minutes looking for a spot, and you don't even know what you want to paint.” Iris voice was dangerously low, and Walker decided he should probably answer her this time.

“Maybe?” The look she was giving him made him decide he maybe should've continued to keep silent.

* * *

When Andi regained consciousness, they first thing they noticed was the itchiness of their right arm. The second thing they noticed was that there was something big, white and bulky on said arm. The third thing they noticed, after focusing for a few moments on trying to remember anything, was that it was probably a cast. Meaning they had probably broken their arm.

It took another second for them to realize they had probably gotten it the crash. A crash that apparently landed them in the hospital, if the doctor walking up to their bed with a clipboard was anything to go by.

“Ah, Ms. Mack, you’re awake, good.” Andi didn’t even have the energy to correct the honorific. “You got out of that crash fairly lightly, just a broken wrist from the looks of things. You may also have a concussion, since it looks like you got a bit of a hit to the head. We have a few questions you’ll need to answer as well.”

The doctor kept up a steady stream of questions while she checked if Andi could still follow things with their eyes and dilate their pupils, which apparently they could, since the doctor just kept asking questions after she stopped prodding them.

“Well,” she began as she set her clipboard aside, which Andi hoped meant they were done with the q&a. “I know you said you’ve been dealing with a lot of stress lately, which is understandable, but I think your symptoms are going a bit beyond pre-finals panic. From what you told me, there’s no reason you should have passed out today, unless there’s a problem going on here. We’re going to have to run some tests before we can release you,” she explained.

“Oh,” Andi said. “Um, how long it this going to take?” they questioned.

“Depends,” she answered. “Since you’re a legal adult, it’s up to you on whether or not we call your guardians and inform them you’re here.” Andi had no illusion that Bex wouldn’t find out about this somehow. Probably when Andi needed her to help pay for what was probably going to be a small fortune in hospital bills. And, when she did inevitably find out, there was no way in hell she wouldn’t be mad if Andi didn’t bother to call her. So, they just sighed as they gave the doctor her number. They were not looking forward to her reaction to this, especially on top of all the wedding stress.

* * *

“Okay, so does everybody approve of this design?” Walker asked holding up his sketchbook. The page was filled of thumbnail sketches of different designs, most of them saying “I’m sorry, Andi.” in different fonts with varying colors.

“I don’t know, I still think you should go for the red letters with the yellow background.” Amber informed him.

“Amber, we’ve been over this.” Iris’ previous misgivings were abandoned for now, with an “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em’’ mentality and resignation taking over. “We need to have a cool color for the letters if we’re doing a warm background so that it pops.”

“Plus,” Marty shook his head, laughing. “We’re not making a McDonald’s ad.”

“I want McDonald’s,” Jonah said wistfully.

“We’ll get some after this.” Cyrus promised and Walker sighed, turning to the group.

“Guys, we’re trying to be serious here.” He huffed, his eye catching Cyrus’s pride bracelet.

“Wait!” Walker realized, frantically sketching a page. “Do you guys remember the mural Andi and I have in Shadyside?”

“Yeah, why?” Gus looked at him with a confused expression. Instead of answering, Walker held up a sketch of “I’m Sorry, Andi. I Love You.” in large, loopy words, all in rainbow. The exact same pattern as the mural Andi and Walker did in middle school.

“It’s perfect.” Iris gasped, having no words of complaint.

* * *

Andi swallowed, watching as the doctor tapped on her clipboard. They had spent the day in the hospital doing tests, and they were too exhausted to stand by the time the doctor had the results ready for them. They were _supposed_ to wait for Bex, but she was almost at the hospital and the doctor thought it would be good for them to know the results now. Andi felt a sudden rush of anxiety on that; they didn’t understand why it was so important that they had to know before their mom came to hear too.

“Andi,” The doctor said in a sympathetic voice, making Andi’s stomach turn. “After running some tests, we found out… something.” She paused, sighing, before she opened her mouth to continue talking. Andi felt the air leave their lungs as they listened to the doctor speak.

* * *

“Oh my god, Walker!” Iris exclaimed, stepping back from the huge rainbow mural in front of them.

“I know right?” Walker said with a triumphant grin. It had been a bit hard, trying to recreate the somewhat complicated design from back home with spray paint on an ally wall, but they had done a pretty damn good job in the end. The words “I’m sorry Andi ~Walker”  were written over the middle of it with white, but the rainbows were still clearly visible and recognizable.

“All right, Walker, get in front of it and I’ll take picture in case someone paints over it before we get a chance to show them,” Buffy said holding up her phone. Walker did as she said as everyone else got out of the way for the photo.

“Okay three… two… o—” Buffy was cut off as her phone began to ring. “Wait hold on.” She said answering it.

“Hey Bex… What?” Buffy’s face had gone deathly pale. “Alright… Okay I’ll tell the others… Yeah we’ll be there as fast as we can… I don’t care we’re going to see them no matter that she said… Okay we’ll be there soon.”

“Buffy?” Cyrus’ voice was full of concern.

Buffy lowered the phone from her ear, face drawn. Her reply left everyone cold.

“Andi’s in the hospital.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [the spotify playlist actually exists!](https://open.spotify.com/user/wgg1p2hv770g1w6cgwtr0b0s7/playlist/1mUpffqmUStxniwpEG3RRV)  
>  If you have any song suggestions to add, or want to send us messages, send them into our tumblrs!  
> [@an-anxious-gay-mess](https://an-anxious-gay-mess.tumblr.com)  
> [@cyrushack](https://cyrushack.tumblr.com)  
> [@he-lives-on-mirkwood](https://he-lives-on-mirkwood.tumblr.com)  
> [@jonahbeckfan4life](https://jonahbeckfan4life.tumblr.com)  
> We will be updating this story (hopefully!) every single Friday, with mini bonus chapters on the occasional Tuesday.


	11. Wonderwall (Flashback)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Walker takes Andi to see the mural, and something unexpected happens

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a mini chapter of what happened in-between The Kids Aren't Alright and this Friday's chapter!

On their way back from the hospital, where Andi had acted off but told them all not to worry because they were just stressed and accidentally got into a car wreck, Walker had suggested that they ride back to the campus with him. He had driven his own car to the hospital, refusing to ride with anyone regardless of everyone being against it. 

“Hey, Andi…” Walker mumbled as they both got into the car. “Look, I’m sorry about earlier—”

“That argument is kind of stupid now, don’t you think?” They laughed bitterly.

“I know, I know, you just have to know that…” He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that, I’m sorry… ” He sighed.

“I.. I know.” They frowned, turning their head away from their boyfriend. “And, obviously, you were right. I shouldn’t have driven at all tonight. It’s my fault..”

“That’s not your fault, Andi,” He shook his head. “You never could have known you’d get into a  _ car wreck _ . Sure, I don’t think you should have driven, but it’s not your fault.” Andi shifted.

“I.. should have known, I wasn’t feeling well..” They whispered, and Walker wondered if they were talking to themself. “I should have known I had..”

“Had what, Andi?” Walker glanced at them in the passenger seat. They looked small and helpless.

“Nothing…” They blinked and looked around as if realizing where they were. Walker’s frown deepened, but he didn’t think his partner wanted to talk at the moment so they stayed silent for the rest of the car ride back.

* * *

 

 

Andi didn’t see the wall until three days after the accident. It was twelve in the morning, and Walker, Gus, and Marty got a knock on their door. Marty mumbled something about TJ interrupting his sleep before Walker hauled himself out of bed, opening the door tiredly.

“Look, dude, we’re trying to slee—”

“I know.” Andi chuckled and Walker frowned.

“What are you doing here?” He whispered. “Are you okay?” Since the accident, Andi  _ had _ been acting strange, but not ‘come over to their dorm at midnight’ kind of strange.

“I’m fine..” They shifted. “Buffy mentioned that you guys painted a mural for me and I wanted to see it.”   
“Right now?” He asked. Sure, he really wanted to show them the mural. Just not in the middle of the night. 

“Yes,” They looked at him seriously. “I might not get a chance again… I— it could get painted over, please.” They chewed on their lip, looking away.

“Okay, yeah.” Walker nodded. Somehow, he could sense the urgency in their voice. He knew that they had to do this  _ now _ , for whatever reason. 

* * *

 

 

The car ride felt…  _ weird _ . Everything was quiet except for The Playlist playing, after Andi had begged, for whatever reason, to have it on. 

“Please, I wanna listen to it.” They said, quietly. So they sat like that, with Walker driving to an alley while Andi sat there, listening to the music, lost in thought. Walker wondered what they were thinking. He almost wished he could read minds. They looked like they were thinking about the greatest mysteries of the world.

“We’re here,” He said quietly, feeling intrusive of their thoughts. They nodded and unbuckled their seatbelt. Walker leaned over to shut the music off, but they stopped him.

“Leave it on, please.” They mumbled. Once again, Walker was confused but respected Andi’s wish. When Walker got out of the car, Andi took Walker’s hand. It was dark, so Walker kept the headlights on so they could see the mural better. 

“Walker, it’s…” Their voice was soft, and it drifted off mid sentence. The glow of the headlights illuminated Andi’s figure. They looked like a ghost.

“It’s beautiful.” They finally whispered, tears falling down their cheeks.

“Woah, Andi…” He looked at them with concern.   
“Yeah, I—” Their words were cut off by a sob, and they turned and buried their face into Walker’s shirt. They stood like that for awhile. Illuminated by car lights, and standing their in their pajamas. The sounds of Andi’s sobs and ‘It’s Beautiful’ by Sofia drifting off into the night.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [the spotify playlist actually exists!](https://open.spotify.com/user/wgg1p2hv770g1w6cgwtr0b0s7/playlist/1mUpffqmUStxniwpEG3RRV)  
>  If you have any song suggestions to add, or want to send us messages, send them into our tumblrs!  
> [@an-anxious-gay-mess](https://an-anxious-gay-mess.tumblr.com)  
> [@cyrushack](https://cyrushack.tumblr.com)  
> [@he-lives-on-mirkwood](https://he-lives-on-mirkwood.tumblr.com)  
> [@jonahbeckfan4life](https://jonahbeckfan4life.tumblr.com)  
> We will be updating this story (hopefully!) every single Friday, with mini bonus chapters on the occasional Tuesday.


	12. Hall of Fame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Walker has an important art event, and Marty decides for everyone that Walker shouldn't be so stressed about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s a OC in this chapter who really just is a real person, so. This is for [Sarah](https://funkylittlelesbians.tumblr.com), because she’s a great friend and big gay.

“Walker, you’ve been obsessively checking the mail ever since you applied, you’ll get the letter when you get it.” Marty’s annoyed voice cut over the sound of Walker pacing as he stared at the time passing on his watch.

“Easy for you to say. Marty, dude, this isn’t some little art show in Shadyside, this is a really high end event and it will be a _huge_ deal if I get accepted,” Walker huffed. He normally wasn’t this caught up on things, but the art show was in a week, and if the letter didn’t come today, it probably never would.

“Why are they sending you a letter anyways? Hasn’t literally the entire world upgraded to email?” Gus mused over the top of his laptop.

“I guess these guys are just really old,” Marty said.

“Yeah but isn't this supposed to be a modern art show? What kind of modern art event planners can’t even send an email?” Gus shot back.

“Well, it does have more than just modern art. Maybe there’s different people handling the different sub genres of art?” Marty offered, thinking uncharacteristically far into it.

“Will you two _please_ shut up?” Walker asked. Marty’s face softened at how stressed he sounded.

“Dude, it's going to be okay. Your art is really good and they’d be idiots for not accepting you. I saw your portfolio and it definitely shows off all your best stuff,” he reassured.

“Besides,” Gus said. “If they don’t, at least you don’t have to spend the entire night acting like a snobby artist with a bunch of old people.”

“Who said he’d have to act?” Marty asked.

“Shut up,” Walker said, throwing a pillow at his head.

“Okay, okay!” Marty laughed, holding his hands up in surrender.

“Cyrus texted!” Walker yelped suddenly. He picked up his phone eagerly, almost dropping it. “The mail’s here!” He was out the door as he said it. Marty sighed.

“I’ll be back,” he murmured to Gus, following his friend to the mailroom.

Walker went straight to his mailbox, opening it with his key. There was only one letter the box, and Walker held it up nervously.

“Are you gonna open it?” Marty asked him, noticing Walker’s look of hesitation.

“I want to open it with Andi,” he mumbled and Marty clasped a hand on his shoulder.

“I get that,” he nodded. “Tell us what happens.”

“Thanks.” Walker said gratefully. Then he left to go find Andi. Hopefully they were in their dorm, because he didn’t think he could wait long enough to perform a manhunt.

* * *

“Oh hey Walker, what do you… need.” Andi trailed of after spotting the white envelope clutched tightly into Walker’s hand. “Oh my god, did you finally get the letter?” Walker could only nod mutely. “What are you waiting for, come in and open it already!”

Walker sat down next to Andi on their bed with the letter still clutched in his hand.

“Well?” Andi asked expectantly.

“Can you read it?” Walker asked. “I think my hand are shaking too bad.” He laughed weakly. He opened it, holding out the actual letter, not wanting Andi to try and open it with a cast on.

“Yeah sure,” Andi said ripping it out of his hands. Their face didn’t show any emotion as they scanned the letter.

“Andi?” He asked nervously.

“Walker I’m so sorry,” they said with remorse.

“So I didn’t make it?” he asked sadly.

Andi shook their head. “Oh no, they said your art was really impressive and that they’d love for your pieces to be there. I’m just apologizing because they also gave you permission to bring as many guests as you wanted and there is no way we aren’t all coming with you. I doubt you’ll ever be invited back,” they said sadly.

“You jerk!” Walker said shoving their good arm with a laugh. “I thought I didn’t make it!”

“Well, it's your fault for being oblivious to the fact that you’re crazy talented then,” Andi grinned, leaning back into the wall tiredly.

“Whatever…” he chuckled even as he stared at them with concern. “Woah, are you okay?”

Andi frowned. “I’m fine,” they dismissed. “Just tired.”

“Andi, you’re always tired,” he mumbled, moving close to them and putting his hand on their knee. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah.” They looked over at their nightstand. “The pain medication for my arm is making me tired, that's all.”

Walker decided not to point out that they had been tired long before they got in that crash. He eyed the bottle on their nightstand. The name on it didn’t sound like any painkiller he had ever heard of, but then again he wasn’t exactly a doctor.

It had only been a week since Andi had gotten into that crash and they could all tell that something was wrong. At first it had seemed like they were just shaken up about the crash, which was honestly probably a part of the problem. They seemed to get mad or overly upset about weird things. They were panicky a lot after the crash, and when they made up it had almost turned into another fight.

He remembered when he finally got around to showing them the mural, a few days after they got out of the hospital, which thankfully hadn’t been painted over, the day they got out of the hospital.

Walker had been execting basically any reaction except for Andi bursting into tears. So, of course, that's what happened.

He wasn’t sure if it was remorse over having fought in the first place or what, but Andi was sobbing onto his shoulder within seconds of seeing the graffiti. They didn’t want to talk about it afterwards, but he’s pretty sure he heard them mumble gratitudes while they were crying, so he guessed he didn't mess up too badly.

They had calmed down some since then, but he was reluctant to provoke another fight, so he stayed silent.

“I’m serious, though, you better be ready for us all to be there,” Andi said.

“Nah, its on a Friday, Marty will insist you guys stay for D&D.”

“Please,” they snorted. “You think he’s going to want to pass up an opportunity to cause chaos at a high end art show?” Walker’s face paled.

* * *

The second Marty heard that they were going to tag along to Walker’s show, he knew they had to do something. He wasn’t even upset about missing D&D night again. Walker was too stressed over the whole thing, and he wasn’t one to act mature just because he was around a bunch of snobby old people. No, they were going to cause just the right amount of chaos that it was funny, but not enough that Walker got even more stressed. It had to be a perfectly balanced act.

First things first: outfits. Walker, of course, was wearing dress pants and a polo. Safe and professional. Marty was fine with overalls over a sweater, thanks.

Of course, that was only the tip of the iceberg.

Gus wearing a similar sweater and matching overalls to Marty, Buffy wearing her rainbow coat, Andi with their three-sized too big sweater, Cyrus’ shirt with just the word “gay” printed in small rainbow font, Iris’ rainbow button up, Amber’s crop top, and Jonah’s leather jacket meant that they were definitely making a statement. A very, very gay statement.

Of course, Walker about choked to death when he saw them all emerge from Amber and Iris’ dorm like a flock of majestic gay art show ruiners. He also tried to demand they change, but they respectfully declined.

The real fun didn’t even start until they got there.

* * *

When the got to the art show, Walker stared at the parking spot with his name printed in big, curly writing. In the spot, a black truck.

“Motherfucker,” Walker mumbled under his breath, staring at the car in _his_ spot.

“What?” Marty asked and Walker motioned to the car.

“That’s my fucking spot,” he groaned.

“Dude, it’s just a parking spot.” Marty replied and Walker shook his head.

“That’s TJ’s car.”

“Motherfucker,” Marty agreed.

* * *

“Ah, Walker King, you’re here. Are these all the guests you said you would be bringing?” The lady working the table was way younger than most of the crowd, appearing to only be about her early twenties.

“Yes, this is everyone. Do they need to sign in?”

“No, I just need to write their names on these tags. It makes it easier to be able to identify between the artists and the guests.” She began reading their names of the list, which she had apparently gotten through an email from Walker, proving the actual paper invitation had been ridiculous, pausing for confirmation and writing them on the tag before handing them to each person.

“Marty Lawson?”

“Actually ma’m,” Marty ignored the look of panic from Walker as he pulled a folded index card out of his pocket. “My parents just recently divorced, and I’ve decided to start using my mother’s maiden name. Could you change the last name on my tag to this?” He handed her the card.

“From thigh part ee?” She was obviously trying to stifle her laughter.

“Frumthipartee. Pronounced ‘From the party’. It’s French.”

“Oh, of course, sir.” Walker may have look horrified, but the lady looked like it had just made her night and his friends looked inspired to go even further in their chaos. _Perfect_.

* * *

After Walker dragged all of them, still giggling, away from the table and towards the area that was mostly filled with his art he made them promise “not to do anything else that would embarrass him.”

So naturally, as soon as he walked away to start convincing some old guy to give him money, they started planning their next move.

“Alright guys,” Marty began. “The trick here is that we have to do something that will make Walker freak out, but we can’t do anything that will actually get him or us kicked out. We want to lighten the mood, not kill him.”

“Well there goes my plans of smashing that ugly vase I saw on the way in,” Gus said sadly.

“‘Fraid so,” Marty confirmed.

“Okay, so what can we do?” Andi questioned. “Aren’t these ridiculous outfits and people calling you ‘Mr. Frumthipartee’ all night enough?”

“Aw, my sweet summer child,” Marty sighed. “You have much to learn.”

Andi just crossed their arms and glared at him.

* * *

Walker stood by his display, chewing on his lip nervously. Unlike his friends, he was trying his best to fit in. He had nodded, exchanging polite words with the guests and other creators. He had even spent the night before taking out his earrings and wiping the dark blue nail paint off his fingers with fiery intensity. This art show was what would determine how he fit into the whole art world. And he was terrified his friends would ruin it.

* * *

“This reminds me of my childhood,” Marty said in a snobby voice, smirking at Gus. The painting under review was a plain black canvas with a dull blue circle in the middle.

“Really?” A tall guy with a mustache peered over Marty’s shoulder. “How so?”

“It reminds me of when I was a little boy,” Marty turned to the man, faking a sad expression. “Sorrow.”

“Well, Mr…” He paused. “Froom thee pairtee?”

“From the party,” Marty smiled. “It’s French.”

“Ah, I see, well, Mr. Frumthipartee,” he rubbed his chin between his fingers. “Your take on this piece is very interesting.”

“Really?” Marty bit down on his lower lip in an attempt to hold in laughter. “I mean, yes, thank you.” He turned to leave, but the man stopped him to say something about the piece. Gus slipped out before the entire rant on the meaning behind the piece—a rant in which Marty had to suffer through.

* * *

“Is it bad that I don’t get any of this?” Amber whispered to Andi, giving them a confused expression in regards to a painting that looked like a three-year-old had done it.

“No,” Andi giggled. “I get what you mean. I love Walker, and I love art, but these...” They shook their head.

“Yeah,” Amber chuckled, bumping into Andi’s side as they walked to the next. They made their way to the next art display, and Andi opened their mouth to argue, but instead they flinched in pain, their body falling into Amber’s.

“Woah, Andi,” Amber held onto them, frowning. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” they nodded, holding onto their knee as they leaned into their friend. “Just.. a cramp, I’m fine,” they replied quickly.

“Here, let’s sit down.” Amber was frowning the whole time as she guided Andi to the nearest bench.

“My knee is just sore, Amber, I’m fine,” Andi murmured. The words didn’t stop the girl from giving her friend a worried look.

“Andi…” she started, one hand on Andi’s lower back and the other on their hand. She opened her mouth to continue talking, but a voice from somewhere in the room interrupted her.

“They let a lot of riff raff in the show this year,” a woman with grey hair mumbled distastefully, and the man she was talking with, the mustache man who was talking to Marty only minutes ago, nodded in agreement.

“Yes, and have you noticed all of the… _homosexuals_.” He must have been referring to Cyrus and his shirt and boyfriend, or maybe he meant Andi and Amber. He never had a chance to explain himself because of Walker.

“What the fuck?” Walker spun on the two adults in front of him, anger clear in his expression and voice.

“You have no right to speak to us like that young man!” the woman said, insulted. Her name tag said “Dolores Hicks.” Despite the sick feeling in his stomach, Marty was able to appreciate that this may be one of the most cliche things that had ever happened to him.

“Actually, I can speak to you however the hell I want. Especially when its my friends you’re talking about.”

“Let it go, Walker,” Cyrus whispered. “C’mon, we all know people like this aren’t worth it.”

“I’m not just going to let these assholes say stuff like that!”

“And to think we thought you a respectable young artist,” the man sniffed.

“The quality of his art has nothing to do with his or his friends’ sexuality.” Andi spoke on their boyfriend’s behalf.

“Yeah, I don’t see _you_ making anything half as good as Walker’s art!” Amber added.

“Is there a problem here?” The lady from the front desk was back, probably having been alerted that a fight was breaking out.

“No, no of course not!” Dolores said hurriedly.

“Yes, we’re just having a conversation with this young man and his friends,” the man added.

“Hmph. I’m still going to have to ask you to follow me. I was told you had made some less than pleasant comments, which I happen to have a very low tolerance for.”

“Well, who cares what you think!” the man argued. “You’re just a lesser secretary and barely older than these children, I’m sure the organizers of this event would be much happier if you kicked out these f—”

“Actually, sir and madam,” she interrupted in a sweet voice. “I’m sure my dads, as part of the organizing committee, would be perfectly happy with me escorting you out of the presence of these guys and off the premises entirely—not to mention the personal pleasure it would be for me and my girlfriend. Now, are you going to leave or am I going to have to involve the authorities?” The two seemed have to realized it was going to get _very_ ugly if they didn’t leave, and resignedly left with upturned noses. After watching to make sure they got all the way out the door, the desk lady turned to them.

“Are you guys alright?”

They all nodded at each other before Buffy spoke up. “Yeah, we’re all okay, Thanks for that, by the way. You were awesome.”

“Don’t mention it. My name’s Sarah, by the way.” Well, at least they could stop calling her ‘desk lady.’

“Nice to meet you. So your dads are really the organizers of this event?” Jonah asked.

She shrugged. “Yup. It was supposed to be something to celebrate young artists, but I guess there were some marketing issues and now it’s some sort of festival of old people badly interpreting modern art, and my girlfriend’s not even here to make fun of them with me.”

“Rip. Well, make sure you tell your dads that at least one young artist showed up. Walker may not be much, but at least he’s something,” Marty said with a shrug, ignoring Walker’s indignant shout.

“Of course, Mr. Frumthipartee,” she smirked. “Oh, and I gotta say that’s I do love your last name. As a French native, I find the meaning of it… inspirational.”

Marty looked as though she had simultaneously run him over with a truck and had also made his day, while Walker just looked absolutely flabbergasted at the implication that she had let Marty get away with everything all night. Sarah simply smiled.

“Well as long as you’re alright I should probably get back to work. Not that I’m getting paid for this. Just a ‘favor’ for my dads. Let me know if I need to kick out anymore homophobes.” She grinned at Walker, giving him a mock salute. “Godspeed, you funky little artist.”

* * *

“Guys, I think I’m questioning my sexuality,” Gus said once Sarah was out of earshot.

“I’m pretty sure that woman just single handedly confirmed all of our bi and pansexualites once and for all, and confused the gays,” Marty nodded solemnly.

“Actually, I think I’m just a bigger lesbian now,” Amber said.

“That was… a powermove,” Buffy agreed.

Cyrus shook his head in wonder. “Still gay, but… wow, she rocked.”

“Yeah,” Jonah agreed, glancing at Walker who seemed to be in shock.

“Dude...” Marty started, cut off by Walker’s booming laughter.

“What the fuck…” he wheezed. “I spent all of this time… worrying about fitting in and thinking I’m not professional enough…” He shook his head. “That was epic,” he murmured, and Marty threw an arm around his shoulder.

“I agree,” Marty nodded. “Marty from the party will _definitely_ be coming to these events more often.” Everyone laughed at that and Walker took one more look at the room of people.

“Let’s go,” Walker decided.

“What—really?” Gus looked at him incredulously.

“Yeah,” Walker nodded, throwing an arm around Andi’s shoulders. “Waffle House, on me.”

“How sophisticated,” Marty teased and Walker shrugged.

“Fuck sophistication,” he replied appropriately before the group all went back to the cars, piling in and driving to the nearest Waffle House.

* * *

 

Later, their stomachs filled with waffles and cheap coffee, they made their way back to campus, Andi and Walker joking about the nights events in the car they had driven together when Walker let out a frustrated shout.

“TJ stole my fucking parking spot!” Then, belatedly. "Again!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [the spotify playlist actually exists!](https://open.spotify.com/user/wgg1p2hv770g1w6cgwtr0b0s7/playlist/1mUpffqmUStxniwpEG3RRV)  
>  If you have any song suggestions to add, or want to send us messages, send them into our tumblrs!  
> [@an-anxious-gay-mess](https://an-anxious-gay-mess.tumblr.com)  
> [@cyrushack](https://cyrushack.tumblr.com)  
> [@he-lives-on-mirkwood](https://he-lives-on-mirkwood.tumblr.com)  
> [@jonahbeckfan4life](https://jonahbeckfan4life.tumblr.com)  
> Also! To reiterate, we will be updating this story (hopefully!) every single Friday, with mini bonus chapters on the occasional Tuesday.  
> We really appreciate comments and kudos, because we all need constant validation!


	13. NOT A CHAPTER / discord server

Hey guys!

If you really like this fic, or if you have any ideas, theories, requests, or opinions about it we have something for you!

We made a discord server!

It has all us writers in it, and its open to anyone who likes the fic, even if you're not a diehard fan.

It's a place where you can talk about anything you want involving I Will Survive (College) plus get some background knowledge from us writers. You can even get some sneak peaks into the outline, where we wrote a bunch of dialogue and information that will never make it into the fic itself.

So, if you wanna come talk to us, or rant about your opinions on what this mysterious issue plaguing Andi is, come join us at https://discord.gg/HKzztYh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [here's the link to the discord!](https://discord.gg/HKzztYh)  
> [and the spotify playlist actually exists!](https://open.spotify.com/user/wgg1p2hv770g1w6cgwtr0b0s7/playlist/1mUpffqmUStxniwpEG3RRV)  
>  If you have any song suggestions to add, or want to send us messages, send them into our tumblrs!  
> [@an-anxious-gay-mess](https://an-anxious-gay-mess.tumblr.com)  
> [@cyrushack](https://cyrushack.tumblr.com)  
> [@he-lives-on-mirkwood](https://he-lives-on-mirkwood.tumblr.com)  
> [@jonahbeckfan4life](https://jonahbeckfan4life.tumblr.com)  
> To reiterate, we will be updating this story (hopefully!) every single Friday, with mini bonus chapters on the occasional Tuesday.  
> We really appreciate comments and kudos, because we all need constant validation!


	14. Boys Will Be Boys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marty is having a shitty day/week/month, and four disasters go on a date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Major dysphoria trigger warnings, mention of blood, trans man on his period

Marty was having the worst day in awhile. For starters he woke up in pool of his own blood, which immediately let him know that the next week or so wasn’t going to be very fun. But he’s had to deal with this every month since he was eleven and it wasn’t a very big deal anymore. It just sucked when it did happened. Especially when he was feeling especially dysphoric.

Then, he found out he had somehow put his binder into his regular load of laundry. It didn’t help that he had already been outgrowing it for a while now, after it went through the dryer, there was no way he was going to be able to fit in it.

So then he had to try and find a sports bra, which of course was not helping the major dysphoria he had already woken up with. And the only way to make a difference about that was to wear the biggest hoodie he could find. Thankfully it was winter, so that wouldn’t be a huge deal, and he just had to trial and error his rather large hoodie collection until he found one that made him look relatively flat. Easier said than done.

He was on his third hoodie when Walker’s alarm rang, followed by the boy to effortless roll out of bed. He yawned and stood up, stretching his arms. He was wearing a loose tank top, and Marty felt a spike of envy before he turned back to his hoodies. He suddenly felt self conscious about taking his shirt off again, so he had decided the one he was wearing was fine.

“‘Morning,” Walker mumbled, pulling his shirt off. He dug around his clothes before pulling out a grey _Panic! At The Disco_ t-shirt, sliding it on. Marty tried to tell himself he wasn’t jealous as he started getting all of his things ready for his classes. He was really happy for Walker. It was great that he could just roll over in the mornings and not worry about having to wear a binder that was too small, hoodies for when he couldn’t, and just feeling genuine mad dysphoria about his chest all day. He was so glad his friend had nice parents that loved him for a him and took him to get testerone shots and top surgery. He wasn’t jealous at all.

“Marty, dude, it’s too hot for a hoodie.” Gus had apparently woken up at some point while he was packing his backpack and noticed the bulky hoodie his boyfriend was wearing.

“It’s winter though,” he argued.

“Yeah the early winter in the south. It’s still like 70 degrees and half our classrooms don’t even have air conditioning,” Walker pointed out.

“My binder shrunk when it accidentally went through the washer,” Marty sighed. He was already out to them, so it wasn’t like he had much point in hiding it.

“Oh. I’m sorry Marty. I don’t think I have any of my old binders or I’d let you borrow one. Would Andi have any?” Walker questioned. Andi was nonbinary, but they did bind sometimes.

“They’d probably all be too small on me. I’ll just have to wait until I can save up for another ones.” He sighed again. “Besides, 70 degrees is fine temperature for a hoodie.”

‘Okay, but take a t-shirt to change into if you get hot. I’m not going to let you overheat and die because you’re stubborn,” Gus said dramatically. Marty obliged him and threw a button up shirt in his backpack as well, knowing he wasn’t going to use it. He probably would pass out from a heat stroke before he changed into anything tighter than a sweatshirt before he got a new binder. And when he started thinking about how long it had taken him to get his first one, back when he was still a kid that walked everywhere and lived with his parents and didn’t have to worry about gas money or buying food… well it looked like it was going to be quite a while until that happens.

* * *

“We can go ice skating?” Amber suggested, clicking her pen repeatedly as she clicked open a new tab on her laptop and read a few lines about a new ice rink that opened up in town.

“Ew, no,” Iris shook her head and sighed. “That’s too cold.”

“That’s fair,” Amber nodded, clicking back a page. “Ugh I don’t know what to do!”

“For what?” a voice asked as Walker and Andi both came into the room, smiling as if they hadn’t just interrupted them and arrived unexpectedly. Iris sighed.

“We’re trying to plan a date,” Amber grinned as Andi sat down next to her on the bed.

“Emphasis on trying,” Iris chuckled, glancing at Walker as he sat himself down next to her. “What are you guys doing?”

“Andi wanted to say… hi,” Walker gave Iris side-eyes. Iris nodded with a knowing look and glanced back at Andi and Amber.

“You know what’s a good date idea?” Andi asked, leaning into Amber slightly so they could see the screen better.

“What?” Amber asked, looking at them.

“You know the poetry place across town?” Andi asked, typing the name into the search engine and clicking it.

“Ohh that looks like so much fun!” Amber grinned and Andi nodded.

“It is!” Andi exclaimed and the two looked at each other for a moment.

“You should come with us.” Amber paused. “I mean, you two, a double date!”

“That’s a good idea,” Iris nodded, smiling.

“What?” Walker frowned, and Iris hit him. “Oh, uh, yeah! It’s a fantastic idea!” he grinned and Iris rolled her eyes, looking at Andi and Amber before glancing at Walker.

“So, this afternoon we go?” she asked, and everyone nodded in agreement. Iris glanced around the room once more and chewed on her lip. This sure was going to be an interesting date.

* * *

Marty had decided that the word ‘winter’ did not mean shit because it was supposedly winter, but it was hot as hell. Sure, Gus had warned him about this, and he _was_ wearing the thickest sweatshirt he owned, but it was still winter and he should have been able to wear it outside without literally dying. Halfway through a history lecture, he was pushing up his sleeves as far as the went, hoping with every ounce of his body that the air conditioning would magically kick in and the room would just be _cool_. He groaned internally, reaching into his bag for a water bottle, but he must have not brought one because it just wasn’t there. He must have forgotten it in the midst of this morning’s misery, he realized as leaned forward and pressed his cheek against the desk, sighing at the cool wood against his face. Just two more classes to go and then he was home free. Glancing at his watch confirmed that time was still passing far too slowly, though.

He couldn’t help but feel that everyone around him was _looking_ at him. It was ridiculous, because everyone was either too stoned or too enraptured by the game of Kahoot to care that one kid they had never talked to was wearing a bulkier hoodie than usual. But still, he knew it didn’t make him look anywhere near flat and dysphoria was a bitch. He stifled a groan into his hands, catching the attention of the girl next to him.

“Hey, are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m alright.” Marty’s lower stomach took that opportunity to remind him how not alright he was, and he instinctively wrapped an arm around it. “Actually, you wouldn’t happen to have tylenol would you?”

“Oh, is it that time of the month?” She nodded sympathetically. “Yeah, I’ve got some in my bag, hold on.”  
He swallowed the pills with a red face at the knowledge that a random girl in his history class knew he was trans. This day could not end soon enough.

* * *

The poetry place Andi had been referring to was really more of a bookshop with a small cafe in it. They sold mainly poetry and had open mics on the weekends, but Walker and Iris had immediately zeroed in on the cafe with its small tables and crowded booths. Well, Iris did, but a quick elbow to Walker’s ribs and a head nudge in the direction of one particularly small booth left them sharing a conspiratory look. Plus, they had hot chocolate.

“Do you wanna get something to drink before we start looking around?” Iris asked Amber, motioning in the direction of the cafe. She smirked when she noticed Amber silently ask Andi if they wanted to before answering.

“Yeah, sure,” she shrugged.

“Great,” Walker said. “Why don’t you two go get in line while Iris and I grab a table. You know what to get us.”

“Wow, that was actually smooth,” Iris muttered in shock as they walked out of ear shot, watching their hands brush as they walked painfully close without actually making any moves. “Come on, let’s grab the table before they get back.”

“I can be smooth....” Walker grumbled as he followed her.

 

Amber walked up to the front, tapping her phone screen irritably as Andi ordered their drinks.

“Ugh,” Amber muttered, staring at her phone before looking up. “What’s the WiFi password?”

“Sorry, ma’am,” the person working the counter mumbled. “Some douche downloaded a virus or some shit so now the internet is down.”

“Fuck,” Amber groaned. “Must've been TJ.”

“Excuse me?” they asked and Amber waved it off, waiting for Andi to order the drinks.

“And one…” Andi murmured, pausing to catch their breath from speaking the two words. “One b—black coffee… please.”

“Woah, Andi,” Amber put a hand on their shoulder. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, just a little out of breath..” Andi shook their head, dismissing Amber’s wave of questions as they waited for their drinks.

 

Iris and Walker  both squeezed into the seats next to each other, leaving it so that Amber and Andi would have to sit together as well. They let out quiet sighs of irritation in unison when they got back to the table only to not comment on the unusual double date set up. In fact, they just scooted closer than the tight fit should have forced them to without saying a word. They just continued to banter in a way that would leave an eavesdropper unaware on if they were actually friends or mortal enemies. Walker and Iris shared another look, this time of frustration, before giving in and drinking their hot chocolate. God, they were even more hopeless than they thought.

* * *

After a long, long, world religions class (stupid college and their stupid required courses didn’t even talk about anything interesting like Greek mythology). Marty finally slumped gratefully in his bed, letting out another groan in the process. He’s been groaning a lot today.

“You okay over there?” Gus asked from his desk with a snort.

“Ughhhh,” Marty groaned in response.

“Alright, spill what’s wrong?”

“This girl in history somehow knew I was trans when I asked her for tylenol.” Marty took his head off the bed to glare at his boyfriend when he let out a laugh.

“Sorry, Marty, it's just that… well, you never really tried to hide it. I assumed you were fine with everyone knowing you’re trans.”

“What do you mean?” he demanded.

“Babe, you literally have, like, three trans flag pins on your backpack. Literally every other word out of your mouth is usually some sort of bi or trans pun. So, what’s with the sudden descent back into closet town?”

“Okay, first of all, never say ‘closet town’ again. Please. Second of all, it’s different when it’s _that_ week and when I can’t even wear a binder. It feels like every little thing that had to do with it is the end of the world.”

Gus’ face softened. “Okay, I know what will make you feel better. Let’s play D&D tonight. Everyone else will get back from their dates or jobs or wherever soon enough and I know how mad you are that we haven’t had time to lately.”

As tempting as D&D was… “Nah, I don’t really feel like doing anything else today. I think I’m just going to lay here and wallow all day until I fall asleep.” Marty turned over with a blanket too soon to register the shock on his boyfriend's face. Or to see him pulling out his phone.

* * *

“Oh Amber check this one out!” Andi called to the girl across a few rows of books.

“ _The Complete Poems Of Sappho?_ Nice.” Amber peered over Andi’s shoulder to read the title rather than just grabbing the book out of their hands, and Iris shared another long-suffering look with Walker.

“Yeah, It looks really cool, plus the translations are…” Andi trailed off when they flipped the book over and noticed the price. “Not worth $17.99.” They all let out a snorts agreement, though they also noticed Andi looked disappointed.

“I can get if for you… if you still want it, that is,” Amber offered.

“What? You don’t have to do that, Amber, really it's fine,” Andi said, frowning.

“It's fine, you know how some of us actually have a job that gives us money that allows us to buy things?” Amber tried to brush it off with her normal sarcasm, but they all noticed the pink quickly spreading up from her neck. All of them except Andi that is.

“I… thanks, Amber.” Andi said with a matching blush. They were both so caught up with staring at each other they failed to notice Walker’s mumbled _“Oh my god.”_

* * *

Three weeks later, the bleeding had stopped but the lack of flat chest had not. This was seriously bumming Marty out. He could tell his friends had noticed as well as they seemed to be trying their best not to upset him. In fact they were actively trying to cheer him up. They thought they were being secretive about it too.

“You know what I want to do today?” Gus asked with a huge grin on his face as he looked at his boyfriend.

“What?” Marty questioned, momentarily taking his head off the bed to look at Gus.

“D&D.” He said it like he just revealed a secret and was waiting expectantly for Marty's reaction.

“No, I don't really feel like D&D today. We haven't played in forever anyways, I forget where the campaign is.”

“Come on,” Gus whined. “I know you don't forget where we are, you were super excited about the next dungeon we were going into. Besides Cyrus says his fans are asking for another video with all of us.”

“You're not going to take no for an answer are you?” He sighed in resignation.

“Nope.” Gus grinned.

“Alright, fine then. I guess we can meet in the girl's room and play. You have to find the dice though.”

 

Marty tried to pretend he wasn't having fun for all of 10 minutes before he started to forget how miserable he was and got into it.

“Can I roll to seduce the guard?”

“Buffy… you’re a troll.”

“Is that what I asked?”

Marty let out a deep sigh. “Roll for it.”

“Nat. 20.” She grinned down at the dice.

Marty stared down at the dice in disbelief, barely hearing the muffled laughter of everyone else at the table, before speaking in an audibly strained voice. “The guard has a troll fetish.”

Everyone at the table started laughing so hard the people in the dorm next to them pounded on the wall and yelled at them to shut up, which only made them laugh harder.

“ _Fuck”_ Walker wheezed eloquently. They all nodded in agreement through their laughter.

* * *

Watching the vloggy video whatever thing back before Cyrus uploaded it didn't put him in as good of a mood. He was wearing a hoodie, but he couldn't help but think that he still looked too… curvy. And being a dungeon master obviously meant he did the majority of the talking, but he still cringed every time he heard his voice. His good mood vanished entirely by the end off the video after having to listen to his voice squeak while he was laughing. He was trying not to show that he was upset again, because he knew his friends were trying really hard to cheer him up. His boyfriend just knew him too damn well.

“Marty?” Gus asked when they got back to the dorm. “What's wrong, I thought you were having a good time while we were playing.”

“I did! Don't worry about it, it's nothing,” he reassured

“Don't try that with me. Tell me why you're actually upset.”

“It's just a bit of dysphoria from watching myself in that video.” He tried to wave it off.

“Oh,” Gus said. “Do you want me to text Cyrus and tell him not to upload it?”

“No, I just watched you try to help him edit for an hour, don't waste that because I’m being dramatic.”

“Its not dramatic, it's reasonable to feel dysphoric.”

“Well, I'm going to have to get over it, because I don't exactly have any way of changing my voice or getting a new binder.” Marty said. He was trying to say it as a joke, but he could hear the bitterness that leaked into his voice. Gus bit his lip, and Marty rushed to apologize.

“Sorry. I shouldn't be taking this out on you.”

“No it's just that—” Gus cut himself off looking hesitant. “Well I wanted it to be a surprise when it actually got here but seeing how upset you are.”

“Wait, did you…?” Marty trailed off trying not to sound hopeful. Gus got his phone out and fumbled with it, bringing up a browser with a confirmed binder purchase notification.

“I mean, it was Walker who picked it out and we all pitched it, though I am the one who came up with the idea but yeah. Surprise?”

Marty let it a laugh that was only a little tearful. “I love you so much,” he said, pulling Gus into a hug that he immediately leaned into.

“Love you, too. Now stop wallowing so much, do you know how scary it was that you off all people didn’t want to play D&D?”

“Sorry,” Marty laughed.

“Its fine. We still love you, you giant nerd.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [the spotify playlist actually exists!](https://open.spotify.com/user/wgg1p2hv770g1w6cgwtr0b0s7/playlist/1mUpffqmUStxniwpEG3RRV)  
>  If you have any song suggestions to add, or want to send us messages, send them into our tumblrs!  
> [@an-anxious-gay-mess](https://an-anxious-gay-mess.tumblr.com)  
> [@cyrushack](https://cyrushack.tumblr.com)  
> [@he-lives-on-mirkwood](https://he-lives-on-mirkwood.tumblr.com)  
> [@jonahbeckfan4life](https://jonahbeckfan4life.tumblr.com)  
> Also! To reiterate, we will be updating this story (hopefully!) every single Friday, with mini bonus chapters on the occasional Tuesday.  
> We really appreciate comments and kudos, because we all need constant validation!


	15. Death of a Bachelor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Triger warning: mentions of death

“Gus,” Marty’s voice came out as barely more than a whisper, and Gus leaned over him slightly over his bed. He coughed a few more times before continuing. “Gus I think this is it. I’m dying.”

Gus’s face was blank as he slowly shook his head. “Marty-”

“No,” Marty interrupted only to be met with another coughing fit. “Whatever you’re going to say, don’t bother. This is the end for me.” Gus shook his head head harder this time.

“Marty stop saying that.”

“Babe, it won’t do any good to deny it. I just hope you can move on without me, it’ll be hard but the others will be there for you. You’ll get through this together, and I’ll always be watching over you.” His voice was getting weaker by the word, and by the end was just a painful croak.

“Marty,” Walker spoke up for the first time since Marty had called them over to his bed. “You’re fine.”

“Seriously guys, you’re going to have to accept it sooner or later.”

“No, Marty, he means you’re literally fine. This is like, the flu at worst but it's probably just a cold. I already told you Cyrus is on his way with some leftover cough syrup from when he was sick.” Gus sighed.

“I can’t believe you two are ignoring the last will and testaments of a dying man.” Marty whined. Gus and Walker were about to explain again that no, Marty you’re not dying, when they were interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Cyrus,” Gus said opening in. “Quick get in here and please tell me you brought the pm stuff so we can knock Marty out.” He pleaded.

“Um,” Cyrus said. “I’ve got nyquil that I think only experied like a week ago.”

“Perfect.”

* * *

“Cyrus, do I really have to be here for this?” Iris asked.

“Well you don’t  _ have _ to.” Cyrus said. “But videos that have all of us tend to get a lot more of a positive reaction and we’re already missing Marty so…”

“Wow, already exploiting us for views? I see how it is.” Amber scoffed. 

“Hush. Gus, how’s the camera, are we ready to go?” Gus thumbed up to Cyrus question and began motioning down from 3. Once he got to  one Cyrus started his intro.

“Hey youtube it’s Cy _ gay  _ here with all of my friends again! Say hi everybody.” The room filled with groans at Cyrus’ intros and half hearted “hi’s.” “C’mon introduce yourselves!” After a few seconds of silence Cyrus scoffed and started pointing at each of them. 

“Okay, here, we’ve got my ex girlfriend (Iris) dating my boyfriend’s ex girlfriend (Amber). We’ve get these two art gays (Andi, Walker,) and we’ve got my camera boy/editor/disaster gay extraordinaire Gus. Not featured is his dying boyfriend Marty, who is currently sleeping in the corner, high on expired cough medicine. Welcome to our Q&A!” Stunned silence met Cyrus’ introductions, before he launched into another explanation to prevent a murderous looking Iris’ attack.

“You guys apparently have some questions for us, so I figured we could go ahead and answer them. I’m taking them both out of the youtube comment sections on my most recent videos, and from twitter dm’s and tumblr asks. Links to both are in the bio! We can go around the room and all read a question, so I’ll go ahead and start. When did we all meet?”

The questions were are fairly simple at first, just fans wanting to know basic information about them all, but eventually they grew bored and started trying to find more interesting questions.

“Okay,” Iris read, “What’s up with Andi and Amber? I mean Walker and Andi are supposedly dating but…” She even read each dot aloud. 

“Wait, what? Obviously I’m dating Iris. Andi’s just my friend. They’re dating Walker.” Iris and Walker snorted and shared a look at Andi’s nod of agreement much to the other two’s confusion. 

“Okay, how about this one.” Buffy started ‘Cyrus, who the hell is this Tj guy you keep referencing?’ under it is another comment by someone named ‘Dj Fruity’ saying ‘Fuck you Goodmen.’” The whole room burst into laughter.

“Tj is… hard to describe. Do you ever think about that one weird kid from middle school you were sort of friends with except you really weren’t? And like you invited him to your bar mitzvah and he came though it was probably just for the free cake? And you literally never heard from him again after you think he moved but sometimes you swear you can sense his presence? But also he’s just a cryptid that’s responsible for all the bad stuff in your life.”

“Yeah fuck Tj.” Walker said. He was met with a hearty cheer of ‘fuck tj’s!’ Buffy passed the phone on to Jonah.

“Oh, here’s a good one. What are we all majoring in?”He looked up. “Well I’m a double guitar and composition major, meaning I’ll probably end up being that guy you pay to scream country music at your kid’s high school graduation that no one shows up to.”

“I’m majoring in film and minoring in photography because birds are great are I can’t write.” Cyrus answered.

“I’m a crime law and justice major because I found out when I went to talk to my guidance counselor in spring that apparently they’ll pay me to argue with people and always be right.” Buffy said.

“I’m a drama and cosmetology double major, because like Buffy, my counselor told me I can be payed to do the things I love. Except in my case it’s being dramatic and pretty.” Amber accompanied her statement with a hair flip that was, you guessed it, dramatic and pretty.

“Gus tell us about you and Marty,” Cyrus requested.

“Oh,” Gus spoke up from behind the camera. “I’m a computer sciences major and Marty’s a history major.”

“Wow. Nerds.” Iris said. “I’m a marine biology major.”

“Yeah and Andi and I are starving artists,” Waker joked, poking his partner who jerked upwards slightly at seemingly being woken up, though Walker didn’t notice. “Though I’m also minoring in photography.” Walker looked expectantly and Andi who was blearily trying to wake up completely. “And Andi is minoring in art history.” He finished eventually. 

“Andi, you okay?” Cyrus asked. He said it somewhat jokingly for the sake of the video, though he was looking at Andi concerned. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Just,” They yawned. “Really tired for some reason.”

“Okay,” Amber said skeptically. Why don’t you go take a nap next to Marty?” Normally Andi would refuse and would keep going on with the video, but their head was pounding and everything looked so blurry they could barely even tell if their eyes were still open or not.   
“Yeah, I think I’ll do that.” They stood up to walk over to the bed. And promptly collapsed. 

The group’s shouts of concern were the last thing recorded before Gus turned off the camera

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/ ¯  
> The stuff about their majors in some of the first stuff in the outline for this and it deserves to be shared somehow. This was supposed to go up Tuesday but Carter sucks (Jk love you uwu)  
> Feel free to comment about how much you hate us

**Author's Note:**

> [the spotify playlist actually exists!](https://open.spotify.com/user/wgg1p2hv770g1w6cgwtr0b0s7/playlist/1mUpffqmUStxniwpEG3RRV)  
>  If you have any song suggestions to add, or want to send us messages, send them into our tumblrs!  
> [@an-anxious-gay-mess](https://an-anxious-gay-mess.tumblr.com)  
> [@cyrushack](https://cyrushack.tumblr.com)  
> [@he-lives-on-mirkwood](https://he-lives-on-mirkwood.tumblr.com)  
> [@jonahbeckfan4life](https://jonahbeckfan4life.tumblr.com)  
> Also! To reiterate, we will be updating this story (hopefully!) every single Friday, with mini bonus chapters on the occasional Tuesday.  
> We really appreciate comments and kudos, because we all need constant validation!


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